


The Age of Oddities Series. Christmas Special: The Musgrave Riddle

by grassle



Series: The Age of Oddities [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Regency, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Murder Mystery, Regency, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:57:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 59,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5367395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassle/pseuds/grassle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Extra bit in the Regency AU version of S1: A Study in Pinks, The Beaux's Banker and The Glorious Game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Archea2 and Lauramac_10 like the idea of Regency Sherlock, all skin-tight breeches and flowing white shirt. I like the idea of Sherlock and Lestrade, only with added Regency. And spanking.  
> Just don’t get the arse about historical, geographical, cultural, socio-economic or procedural inaccuracies. Seriously. Don’t.
> 
> “This is the age of oddities let loose.”
> 
> George Gordon, Lord Byron, _Don Juan_

“Do try, Lestrade! It’s quite easy, if you’d only cease clutching at the fence as if it’s a life-raft in a storm.” Sherlock tried to throw him a glare along with his words, but it wasn’t even within ames ace. Not when Sherlock’s normally pale face was rosy from the cold and his eyes shone more silver than blue-green with the reflection of the ice. Oh, and not when his breath hung in the freezing air, so Lestrade was convinced he could see the words Sherlock spoke. He’d literally been hanging on to his viscountship’s words all afternoon.

But still Lestrade shook his head. “You go, sweetling. I’ll not be an addle pot and spoil your fun. ’Sides…” The breath was stolen from his poor lungs at the sweet, ripe swell of Sherlock’s buttocks as he bent over to strap the Dutch blades to his boots. “I get the best view from here.”

Sherlock’s pursed lips as he straightened indicated he knew to what Lestrade referred and it wasn’t the winter scene before them. With a suspicious, “Hmm,” and with a fleeting caress of Lestrade’s hand he was gone, skimming across the fenced-off rink of smoothed ice in a perfect Dutch roll.

Where’d he learn all that Low County gliding, Lestrade wondered. For all he knew, there was some special iced area in the big country house where Sherlock had grown up. Maybe all the nobs had ’em, along with orangeries and forcing houses and succession houses, although he had a suspicion those last three were all the same thing. And more probably, if there was such a thing as an artificial manmade ice rink, he’d bet it was Sherlock who’d made it. And given it a break-teeth name, like a glaciarium, or a frigus-aquarium. And…he did look a treat, whizzing along like a ball from a musket, now spinning like a top, now whirling on one long, slim leg…

The loudest applause to greet Sherlock’s feat came from Lestrade, and Sherlock shot back to his side like a cork from a bottle, stopping on a penny like Piers tried to stop his horses, right in front of a grinning Lestrade, who was still happy to remain on the other side of the wooden palings, however. He wasn’t about to make an arch duke of himself. He’d fallen arsey varsey on his blind Cupid quite enough already, just trying to get used to walking on the ice. He shooed Sherlock away.

“I’m fine. Might just nip into there and get something to chase the chill while I watch. And you’re a rare sight to watch.” He fancied Sherlock preened a little before giving him a quick-march twirl.

“As long as a glass of rack punch is all you buy. Poor Billy’s quite weighed down with your souvenirs already,” Sherlock warned.

“Oi! You’ll be the one crying like a calf led to market when you’ve no reminders of what you’re always telling everyone’ll be London’s last Thames freeze!” Lestrade rejoined. 

“Because it will be! Statistics prove the climate’s becoming milder. And there are plans to replace that stupidly narrow-arched London Bridge with one with wider arches, allowing the tide to flow more freely, just as there’s a scheme to build embankments along the Thames. All of that will make the river less likely to freeze,” Sherlock insisted. “So yes, this will be the last –”

“Frostival?” Lestrade couldn’t resist slipping in, knowing how much Sherlock detested the new coinings the event had minted. “Or –”

“ _Frostiana!_ ” carolled a muffled-up pedlar from the printer’s, waving the small book that was printed right there in the booth on the frozen river. “ _Frostiana: or a history of the river Thames in a frozen state with an account of the late severe frost; and their wonderful effects or frost, snow, ice and cold in England!_ Get your one-hundred-and-twenty-four page remembrance, type-set and printed on the frozen Old Father Thames hisself, of what authentic university-educated bona fide experts say will be London’s last Freezeland!” He tipped a huge wink to Sherlock and touched his hat, shifting his bundle to do so. “Thanking you, good sir. You’re –”

‘“A story as true as it is fair, of a life-blood river turned Bartholomew Fair, of a river quite stopped with thick white frost, so half the nation Old Man Thames has crosst…’ Buy the ballad of London’s guaranteed last ice age!” trilled a chanter, almost invisible inside his layers of clothing and hefting a basket of paper sheets.

“ – good for business.” Lestrade finished the hawker’s words for him.

“We require nothing of your wares, men. The good Bow Street Runner here –”

“I’m not –”

“Has purchased all the books, ballads, prints, commemorative glasses and plates available and enjoyed a hank of Lapland Mutton, which is merely normal roasted mutton, sold at thrice the price,” Sherlock finished, raising a feathery eyebrow at Lestrade.

“It’s cooked right here, right on the ice,” Lestrade muttered. “In Freezeland-Street.” He indicated the public way formed on thick ice between Blackfriars and London Bridges and filled with chattering, laughing, whooping, walking, and slipping and falling masses. He looked harder – there was even a sledge, for people to be pulled along in now! Only in London, he thought. And perhaps only on the Thames, its life blood. Its people were hardy, resilient, adapting to this as to other reverses. When the freeze had hit, the watermen, unable to ply their trade of ferrying people across and down the river, had hired themselves out at the ends of streets leading to the water, offering safe passage across the frozen stretch to the opposite bank.

Of course, that had matured or mutated to charging revellers to enter or leave the festivities via ashes-strewn access points, once the winter carnival had started. And that was another thing about London: trade. Commerce. Everywhere and anywhere. Anything and everything. Any time and any place. A clod walloper, a mud’n’creamer up from the West Country, Lestrade had been left with his mouth hanging down to his knees when the first accident he’d attended became a marketplace within minutes.

The overturned carriages and trapped people and animals had drawn a bristle of helpers and bystanders – and had rung to the “Pip pip pip!” of the painted-faced, winking-eyed apple seller, and the demure, “I have fresh milk and cheese to buy!” of the white-clad, blushing-cheeked milkmaid, twisting her shoulders to make her yoked pails swing. He’d wondered how the traders knew, and had quickly learned about London’s children, her Cockney Arabs, the capital’s flock of human sparrows, the underage ears, eyes and legs and hands of the city. From the mudlarks of the Thames shores to the anybody’s children of the markets and the jugglers and tumblers of the inn courtyards, these urchins were the true masters and mistresses of the streets.

This was like a city in miniature here, he reckoned, grinning as he watched Sherlock whoosh and twist a bit more on the smoothed ice and also took in the scene. Freezeland-Street was flanked by a double row of gaily coloured booths, all done up with flags and streamers and signs, where anything and everything was for sale, from food such as brandy balls to black pudding, or offered for entertainment, from skittles to sword-swallowers. When he’d first seen the frozen river’s uneven humps and hummocks of ice, he’d been taken right back to the sand dunes of his childhood, and he guessed his holiday mood was in part due to that, although the crisp, clean sting of the ice was very different from the warm, wet salt and sediment scent of the seashore.

And, he thought, warming to his theme, tricky as that was in a frost, while the beach might have attracted musicians and so there’d been dancing to reels, of a weekend evening, say, it didn’t have funny-named tents selling glasses of hot mum or strong Geneva, or barges for learning the Danse Espagnuole or playing Rouge-et-Noir. He set his mind sternly against the high day and holiday mood which was infusing him, and which could so easily tip over into the raucousness he was there to prevent. Oh yes, he was working, there to keep public order, because where there were crowds, there was trouble. They went together sure as eggs followed bacon. If the gentility frequented events, the low lives were sure to haunt them too, all the pickpockets, cutpurses and drunks. Lestrade touched his brass-tipped cane, his badge of office, and peered narrow-eyed all around.

His gaze was drawn to that dangerous-looking amusement, a wooden flying boat suspended in the middle of a big triangular frame. And people paid money to be strapped in and pushed hard from front to back by those men underneath, so they could swing back and forth, their half-circles getting bigger and bigger as they built up the power to go right over the top, turn upside down and come back the other side, rightway up! Who’d pay good coin for that, to be made dizzy and sick and –

“Inspector cuz! I say! I’m right up here! Can you see – bleurrugh!”

’Course. _That_ sort of person. _Oooh._ Mrs Hudson would have a right old time of it getting Piers’s clothes clean after he’d revisited his victuals all over them like that. Oh, and still was, even though the boat was swinging slower and slower to a stop. Attracting quite the crowd himself, he was. What in Christendom had the lad been eating or drinking that was that violent hue? Needing respite, Lestrade walked around the wooden fence a little, making for the other entrance, thinking to wait for Sherlock there. He’d be tiring of it soon, no matter how proficient he was at it – or probably because of his prowess in it. Yes; he’d be making for the gap in the fence and – be attacked!

Lestrade shouted, his hands fumbling for his whistle, his eyes popping out of his head in the few seconds it took for the dark-cloaked figure to enter the enclosure at a run and gain more speed and power as he cannonballed up behind the oblivious Sherlock and dropped a sack over his head! It only took the blink of an eye for Sherlock to be thus rendered blind and deaf and his assailant to pin Sherlock’s immobilised upper body in a tight hold, his momentum sweeping them both off!

Well, the bastard wouldn’t get far, Lestrade determined, setting off in hot pursuit, sending up three blasts from his whistle. And he didn’t: just as far as the other bank, to vanish in between the half-dozen stuck-fast boats looming there, looking almost ghostly in the emerging moonlight. Soon ghostly him, Lestrade decided, grabbing his cane in one hand, ready to settle accounts with Mr Kid the Napper, the criminal stupid enough to tangle not just with Sherlock Holmes, for Christ’s sake, but Bow Street too. He slid to a halt and drew his firearm, quite fancying a bit of target practice on the villain who…was lying full-length, on top of Sherlock where they’d landed when the rogue’s wild journey had curtailed. His head was level with Sherlock’s waist, and Sherlock tore at and wriggled from the burlap sacking to pull it free, struggling to sit up, and then exclaimed, “ _You!_ ” before crashing down again onto his back in…a fit of giggles?

As Lestrade dashed up, weapons in hand to strike first, take names later, maybe, the man levered himself free of Sherlock to flop over onto his back and lie next to him. Close to him. Close enough for their heads to almost touch as they regarded each other. The man burst out laughing as well.

“Me,” he agreed. “Who else?” Then an exaggerated, “Ouchh!” was heard as Sherlock let fly with a lazy hand to thump the man. “You rub that better, you wretch!” ordered the man in tones as cultured as Sherlock’s, as commanding as Sherlock’s, as…clever as Sherlock’s. Their voices were so similar that Lestrade almost thought they must be related. Cousins, perhaps. Brothers, even. Yet he doubted that for all the closeness, there was any blood tie between them. “Or kiss it better. Up to you.” Yep – not blood relatives. Least, not judging by the way Sherlock treated his blood relatives.

Still panting from his chase and almost shaking with the thrill of it, Lestrade dragged his gaze up the man’s long, long legs and lean, wiry body, all dressed in fancy, expensive gear, to his face. “You, who?” burst from him, to his chagrin, and he slowly put his pistol away, making sure his coat was pushed back to keep the weapon visible.

“Lestrade.” Sherlock’s voice came up from the patch of shadow the men were half-hidden in. “Don’t shoot or club him. Well… No. Best holster the cane. For now.”

A reluctant Lestrade did so. “You know him.” His words to Sherlock weren’t a question.

“Very well,” the criminal answered for Sherlock, lashes lowered to hide any gleam in his eyes. Throwing him a narrow-eyed glare, Lestrade held out a hand to help Sherlock rise. As Sherlock took it, Lestrade might have tugged a little too fiercely, pulling Sherlock up in an inelegant, ungraceful rush, making him stumble into Lestrade. Lestrade helped brush him down, settling those tumbled curls he loved, and only then turned to the man, who shifted into a sitting position.

It could have been the shaft of twilight, sort of thin and blue the man smacked into, or it could have been Lestrade’s lack of breath, but the mackerel-back’s face seemed wholly composed of angles? A triangular nose that said _how’d’ydo?_ when the planes of his cheekbones said _hullo_ , so well did they gang together, and the lips a chiselled slash, thin but could never be accused of meanness, not the way they were open wide, to reveal so many of those regular white teeth, both top and bottom. Despite the man’s turning more fully into the thickening beam of moonlight it was difficult to see his eyes, and the impression Lestrade got was blue-grey, perhaps, a little silvered, and foreign seeming, somehow.

“Yes, I’ve known him under various identities,” Sherlock replied. “Monsieur Grave, for one.” He smirked.

“What, an alias? Because who’d call himself Grave?” Lestrade scoffed, uncaring if the dry-boots still sitting on the snow could hear him.

“Musgrave. His family name,” Sherlock explained. “And he was briefly Reginald, only to desist when he was dubbed Regina. Oh, and Queenie, if I recall.” There was a snide light in his eyes as he spoke.

“Ah yes. One’s colleagues can be cruel,” agreed the once-Reginald, waiting for a hand up, then shrugging and rising unaided when none was proffered.

“Kids, eh.” Lestrade could afford to be sympathetic. He’d suffered at school too at the hands of its resident cods-heads and drumbelos.

“Oh, this was at Oxford,” corrected the man. “Although we did…know each other at school.”

“Reginald was an attempt at anglicizing the old Norse name of Rögnvaldr he was…blessed with. And after that he went by Aesc.” Sherlock shrugged.

“Ash?” Lestrade echoed in disbelief, his mind taking a funereal turn to death and cremation and burial. Well, only natural. You heard Grave, you thought –

“A-E-S-C. Ash. Also Nordic.” The man, Aesc, smiled again, revealing all those teeth again. His eyes were probably more blue than grey normally, Lestrade thought.

“It’s his middle name. No one uses his first one now,” Sherlock said.

“Indeed not, William,” said the man. It was his turn to smirk, as Sherlock scowled.

“W –” was as far as Lestrade got before Sherlock snapped out a curt, “Leave it.”

Aesc laughed and took a step forward to clap Sherlock on the shoulder. His hair was a dark reddish-blond, also sort of non-English looking, and springing back from a high forehead in messy waves to end at his nape in unruly curls. He reached to shake Lestrade’s hand, and Lestrade saw he sported a moustache and neatly trimmed chin beard with that mouch bit just under the lower lip. It was of a slighter redder hue than his hair. Always the way in true redheads. Whiskers and…more private hair always came in redder, more ginger, than the hair on the head. Lestrade darted a glance at Sherlock. And funny: when he was a lad they’d called that chin strap effort a goatee, looking as it did like the tufts on goats’ chins. Only now it had a fancier name, after some Dutch painter. Huh. No escaping that nation today. There came a heavy thudding behind them.

“Cuz? Sherlock? Are you… Oh.” Piers stared at the group.

“No! This damme-boy is never little cousin Piers!” Aesc exclaimed. “Last time I saw you, you roaring fellow, you were in swaddling clouts, and I think you’d just soiled them!”

“Well, I’ve just this minute catted over myself!” Piers spoke as though of a boast-worthy feat. The newcomer had been about to embrace Piers, but now his wide-open arms dropped and he stepped back.

“Well,” said Lestrade, eventually, into the silence cast by Piers’s words. “Mr Musgrave –”

“ _Lord_ Musgrave,” and “Aesc,” came in tandem from the two men, as well-matched as a pair of Yorkshire coach horses.

“Lord Musgrave makes me feel in my dotage. A real crusty-beau,” Aesc continued, mock-shuddering and laying a supplicant hand on Lestrade’s arm. A raised eyebrow from Lestrade had him removing it. He looked at it with comically wide eyes and shoved it into his pocket.

“Musgrave, then,” Lestrade conceded, his look stern and tone firm. “What brings you to town out of season? Not wanting to salt your brine for you, but shouldn’t you be in the middle of the countryside hunting and shooting? Even the Little Season’s over now.” And his sort wouldn’t normally be caught dead in London after it ended in November. He turned to look at Sherlock, feeling the force of the gaze turned upon him. _“What, sweetling?”_ he asked using his expression alone. Sherlock didn’t reply.

“Oh well, I couldn’t miss the frost fair!” exclaimed Aesc. “I needed to attend. I mean, all this?” He waved a hand at the entertainment all around. If Lestrade thought the sleigh ride, or the shooting at marks, or the pigeon holes, or the nine-pins, or the donkey races, or the puppet-play, or the travelling-theatre were strange pursuits for an aristocrat, he said nothing.

“Have you ever, ever known me to be squirish?” Sherlock enquired of the newcomer, his tone sharp. “No; you haven’t. And you won’t ever. Oh, and I haven’t grown a woolly crown since you saw me last. So I suggest you drop the mummery and tell me why you’re really here. Tell _us_ ,” he amended, brushing against Lestrade. “Inspector Lestrade is a highly regarded public officer of Bow Street magistrates court.”

“Well, erm…fine.” Musgrave looked from one to the other. “I was seeking you. Your housekeeper said you were here, so here I am.” Out of the corner of his eye Lestrade saw Piers smack his own forehead, his eyes and mouth open comically wide.

“Consider the message that was given to you for me delivered, Piers,” murmured Sherlock. ’Course, Mrs Hudson would have sent word this man was looking for Sherlock.

“Will do. I’ll tell it you later.” Piers gave a broad wink in their direction and wandered off again. Lestrade joined Sherlock in wondering, although his was silent and not out loud at the top of his lungs, just when Piers’ university term would start again. Oh, and why was he lodging with them, anyway? Sherlock’s hypothesis was that the youth had simply forgotten to return home after helping them with what John Watson referred to as _A Study in Pinks_. Lestrade would have been prepared to lay odds it had more to do with a certain maid, who Piers was pursuing – when he remembered. Dressed as a coachman.

“Because I’ve got a mystery for you to solve,” Aesc continued, leading them away from the bank and back to the partitioned-off ice field.

“I don’t _solve_ _mysteries_ ,” came in a sneer.

“Oh, I meant a case to crack. Excuse me,” Aesc continued. Lestrade again tried not to stare at him. Or Sherlock. Couldn’t help wondering how back the two of them went, though. And how. “It’s inexplicable, more than a little bizarre, involves a dead body, and hence I thought of you.”

“Oh?” Sherlock took his time undoing the leather straps and settling his boots and trousers free of the skeet, but he was getting interested, Lestrade could tell.

“Thank you. Enjoy the evening.” Aesc retrieved a leather satchel from the man guarding the rink and gave him a wide smile and a shining coin. Lestrade had to look away at Sherlock’s rolling eyes. Their guest led them into the little tent next to the rink, the grog shop that had caught Lestrade’s eye and nose before, and signalled for three small cups of the steaming drink. Oh, no wonder the aroma had put Lestrade in a reverie – mulled cider!

“It’s wassail.” Aesc clinked his pewter cup against theirs as they sat on their upturned wooden bucket seats. “ _Waes Heal_ ,” he toasted.

“Be whole,” Sherlock translated. “The Anglo-Saxon pledge gave its name to the beverage.”

“Also Stay Healthy or Good Health.” Lestrade dipped a finger in his cup to remove the sop of toasted bread, casting it over his shoulder into the brazier’s flames as an offering for a good harvest before draining his cup. He looked askance at the two dimber-coves trying to drink around the bread. “Somerset man, remember?” He’d been the youngest lad in his village and played Tom Tit one year, hoisted aloft into the oldest and tallest apple tree in the orchard to hang the cider-soaked toast on its highest boughs. He’d sweated cobs learning that incantation. Shaking off the past he rubbed his knee against Sherlock’s and looked at their de facto host. “If you’d be so kind?”

“Ah, yes. Well, what would you say if I told you I was attacked in the street and all the ruffians wanted was…this?”

“A…goose. A…dead goose.” Lestrade went to hand back the bag. The bird’s gaping, slashed throat didn’t sit well with the wassail. He’d…never understand the ways of the Ton and wondered if this Nob wasn’t a bit dicked in the nob.

“Quite.” Aesc’s eyes shone a vivid blue.

“You still keep up the pugilism, I see,” Sherlock remarked. “There were only two of them, that waylaid you?” Lestrade followed the direction of Sherlock’s gaze, to his friend’s knuckles. Oh.

“Well, I was disinclined to acquiesce to their request that I hand it over. But I was curious. Once I’d dispatched them, I examined the fowl. And noticed a distention in its gullet. Its crop, to be precise.” He looked at Sherlock, his eyes gleaming. “The pouch crop,” he said softly, his words private in the noisy, cheery establishment. “Not any other sort.”

“So you slit it open, and found…”

“This,” Aesc answered Lestrade with his eyes still on Sherlock. He uncurled his hand and rested it on the wooden plank tabletop. The blue jewel gleamed bright in the murky tent, almost obscenely so, its depths unknowable.

“By Saint George and the blasted dragon!” The shock, or maybe the dwelling on the past had turned Lestrade into his father. He closed Musgrave’s hand around the gem quickly.

“No need to ask if you recognise it.” Sherlock was almost amused. “And you know what it is?” This to his school chum.

“The Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle, I presume.” Aesc wrapped the jewel in a small cloth. “It’s been in all the papers.”

“The jewel you’ve been searching for for days,” Sherlock said to Lestrade.

“I bloody know!” Lestrade burst out, debating whether to apologise to the Quality for his St. Giles language. Decided against it. If Lord Fly and Mighty chose to idle around the frost fair, he’d heard worse. “I know,” he echoed, a little more softly.

“Oh! That’s lucky. Here you go, then.” The covered jewel was pressed into Lestrade’s hand, and he felt a little faint. A flock of questions struggled to fly free. “I don’t understand,” he gritted out.

“What I don’t understand,” Aesc said, “Is why it’s called a carbuncle when it’s not a red stone, neither a garnet or a ruby. It’s patently a sapphire.”

“And a highly valuable one.” Lestrade was hoarse, as though he’d been shouting.

“Because it was once an actual carbuncle. On the face of the maharajah of Patiala’s favourite wife. She’d ben ill-wished by a jealous rival, another of the wives, and an unsightly wen appeared on her face.” Trust Sherlock to know. Lestrade sneakily beckoned the boothkeeper over with his ladle to refill their cups. This could go on. Sherlock waited for the man to limp off to his place again and continued, all in one breath, as usual.

“The countess of Morcar, wife of the count of Morcar, as one might expect, the governor-general of Southern India, was dining in the wives’ harem while the count attempted yet again to influence the maharajah, where she was irritated to discover her influencing of the wives to sway their husband was interrupted by the favourite’s lamenting over the boil. So she applied a little tea tree oil from the portable pharmacy she takes everywhere with her and by morning the blemish was gone. The maharajah was most pleased, probably because the complaining had stopped and so sent for the redoubtable countess, the first time any maharajah of Patiala had an audience with a white woman, to present the countess with the jewel, that he said was the carbuncle turned mineral and made blue with all the tears of joy wept over it. Oh, and he also signed whichever of the count’s treaties the countess thought the most important, she being the repository of wisdom of the couple.” Sherlock drained his cup.

“Oh.”

Lestrade mentally echoed Musgrave. Hours spent looking for the stone and he’d never once thought to ask why a blue stone was called by the name only a red one could be. It had probably never occurred to Sherlock that he didn’t know. “Thank you,” he said. “That was interesting. I enjoyed the way you told the story. Brought all the people to life really well, you did – the count and countess were just like that when I met ’em!”

“Oh.” Sherlock blinked rapidly. “I...my pleasure.” He returned the pressure of Lestrade’s leg against his, his face softened. But it sharpened as he brought his attention back to the case. “The countess was residing at the Pulteney Hotel, Piccad – No! You’ve...never taken a set of bachelor rooms at the Albany!” Sherlock’s mirth left him choking on the square of toast he’d unwittingly consumed. He couldn’t speak clearly, but phrases such as _the very heartland of_ _buck-fitches_ _and_ _duddering rakes_ made it past the gasps and hiccups as he squirmed to avoid Musgrave’s long finger poking him in the ribs in retaliation.

“Heartless wretch. Always mobbing me up. Well, be that as it may –”

“It is. It’s practically in the Albany’s puff-paper,” Sherlock interrupted Aesc. Then his eyes narrowed and he stilled. “It means you were correct. _We_ were correct. James Ryder, upper-attendant at the hotel, is innocent.” This to Lestrade.

“He’s guilty of something,” Lestrade riposted. “Him and that Cusack woman, the hotel lady’s maid.”

“They are. This just proves my surmise.” Sherlock tossed up the cloth-wrapped jewel and caught it, his raised eyebrow chastising Lestrade for not having felt its loss. Lestrade pointed at the flap of the tent, his hand shaking and his mouth open in fear, then, when Sherlock whipped around to look, snatched the package from him. Sherlock scowled, so Lestrade softened the blow by dropping his hand down onto Sherlock’s thigh, for a quick squeeze.

“Sorry, petal,” he murmured, only then becoming aware Musgrave was watching them, a pleat in his high forehead and a thoughtful twist to his lips.

“Most of the employees at the hotel are guilty,” Sherlock continued, making them jump. “Only not of this. Why buy a goose?” he suddenly snapped at Musgrave.

“For the orphanage,” came the reply. “I...wanted to do something, if I was in town.”

“Suggested by the Albany porter – no the under-porter.” Sherlock nodded when Aesc agreed. “The mews behind the Albany backs onto the hotel’s garden. The garden in which poultry and rabbits are raised and vegetables grown, for the hotel. Only the staff, led by the cook, grow and raise and make extra, selling it and pocketing the proceeds.”

Lestrade frowned. the woman, large, blousy and Irish, had been hiding something. “And that under-porter’s one channel for sales.”

“The hotel kitchen probably supplies the apartments’ meals. Officially or otherwise.” Sherlock waved a hand.

“But the jewel, the goose?” Aesc asked.

“Turd wallopers,” Sherlock announced.

“Do you have to?” Lestrade asked. The picture sat poorly with the mulled cider churning in his stomach.

“A fish rots from the head down,” Sherlock continued. “The hotel staff’s behaviour encourages laxness in the services they deal with. I observed the dust-cart men performing their duties very perfunctorily, so it’s obvious the night soil men would too, merely emptying the slops on the vegetable garden.”

“You really have to.” Lestrade was resigned.

“Which was when one saw the sapphire. The countess enjoys her drink, you said, and becomes clumsy after imbibing. She dropped or knocked the jewel down the privy, the walloper saw it and tried to retrieve it, but he was too late. A goose gobbled it up. May I? yes, look.” He finished examining the gem with his magnifying glass and handed the bright blue bauble over to Lestrade. “Clear signs of faecal matter in the facets.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.” Lestrade’s protest came faintly as he rewrapped the gem and wiped his hands on a rag.

“But when the man returned at a more opportune moment to retrieve his finding, he found –”

“The bird had flown.” Lestrade grinned at his own wit.

“And it was an easy matter to discover from the under-porter into whose possession the bird had flown.” Sherlock grinned to. “With the bird having that bar on its tail. A quite unusual marking.”

“Lucky!” commented Aesc. “So would you like me to wander around the streets of Piccadilly for a while, with officers following me to apprehend the turd catchers?”

“Let’s get out of here,” Lestrade begged, the noise and heat and the tallow-and-sawdust scent of the tent suddenly a little too much. He shoved the precious gem deep into the inside pocket sewn into his shirt by Mrs Hudson. Musgrave tossed a large coin over to the tent owner, calling out a hearty thanks and cheery greeting. Liked playing Sir Timothy, paying the reckoning everywhere, did he? Fine by Lestrade. Out in the fresh air he breathed deeply and suddenly guffawed.

“Hmm?” Sherlock asked.

“Just thinking, we’ve cooked their goose for them!” Lestrade explained. “And that they’ll get in the neck for this. Yes; I know the throat’s not strictly the neck, but...” Finding the fresh air too much, in its own way, he dug out his cigars and leaned into the tallow candle guttering in the earthen pot suspended from the tent’s rope to light one and draw in a grateful blast of leaf tobacco. He wasn’t surprised Sherlock rootled in the tin and took one too before Lestrade repocketed it. He also wasn’t surprised when Sherlock leant in close, to cup Lestrade’s cheek and light his cigar from Lestrade’s. Their third was, if his start was anything to go by.

“You...blowing a cloud?” Musgrave’s voice was high with disbelief. “You...haven’t seen service?” Smoking was relegated to the lower classes and those fighting abroad once the supply lines of snuff ran out

“Hardly.” Sherlock’s plume of smoke streamed upwards as he mocked. “And now we’ve had the appetiser, I suggest we move on the main course. The real reason you’re here in town. What’s happening back at the House you wanted to get away from?”

“What? I...” The man bit his lip as he regarded Sherlock, his gaze drawn to Sherlock’s eyes. “The... Well. I never believed in it, as you know.”

“Until now.” Sherlock grabbed his friend by the arm. “What’s happened?”

“What,” Lestrade interrupted, “Are you talking about?”

“The Musgrave Riddle,” they answered together.

“Seems somebody believes in it – they must have been trying to puzzle in out. And it’s already resulted in a fatality and madness,” Aesc added.

“ _Excellent._ ” The cloud of smoke Sherlock blew free was one of pure satisfaction


	2. Chapter Two

“Hold hard. In fact, hold very hard.” Lestrade ran a hand through his hair. “What are you talking about? What’s this riddle?”

“Nobody knows,” Musgrave answered.

“Well, I appreciate that, else it’d be solved, wouldn’t be.” Lestrade ran his other hand through his hair, smiling his thanks when his sweetling settled it flat for him again. The only reason he knew Sherlock disarranged his curls so Lestrade would smooth them flat was because...he himself did the same with his much shorter, much straighter locks. “I mean, what’s it about?”

“Well, that’s what no one knows.”

“What’s it to get?”

“No one knows that either.”

“Where are you going?” asked Sherlock in surprise. He caught Lestrade’s arm to halt his attempt to turn round and leave them.

“Back in there for another drink.” Lestrade jerked a thumb toward the suddenly more inviting groggery and eyed the duo. “Maybe that’ll make this make more sense.”

“Really, it’s fairly simple.” Sherlock sighed. “You see, like all good ancient aristocratic dynasties, Musgrave’s has what might vulgarly be called a family secret, passed from generation to generation.”

“Ancient aristocratic families?” This caught his attention. “ Has yours got one?”

“Oh, they’re nothing like as ancient. Practically _arrivistes_ ,” Musgrave said, his eyes twinkling. Sherlock scowled. The remark had all the hallmarks of an old mutual joke, or a sore point. “ _We_ go way back,” Musgrave affirmed, elbowing Sherlock in the ribs, to receive the same treatment. Only harder and sharper, no doubt, it being Sherlock on the dishing-out end. “But the rhyme or riddle, well, it’s not spoken of. It’s considered bad to even speak the words. Not just bad form. Bad all round. As in bad things happen. Throughout the generations.”

They were passing the travelling-theatre tent at that moment, and it led Lestrade to bark out a sardonic, “If you can’t say it, why not act it out for us, then? Bit of mumming, round off the night?”

“I’ve never looked at it,” Musgrave confessed. “Never...liked to.”

“Oh, but –” Sherlock started to exclaim.

“As the heir, the ancient scroll was shown to me when I attained majority. Along with an injunction never to seek to know, or tell. And now, well. I’ve had more to think about.” Musgrave shrugged. Lestrade supposed his father’s death was a recent one. Since Sherlock’d last seen him, at least.

“I’m not nobility, so I don’t really follow,” Lestrade said. “I don’t understand why you’d bother having this big, dark, noble-family secret if it’s not to be solved or even spoken of? Why not...just never mention it? That’d keep it hidden all right.”

There was a sharp silence that followed this, then Sherlock laughed, that rich, ripping-velvet chuckle Lestrade adored. “He’s got you there,” Sherlock said to Musgrave, when he could speak.

“Wanged me good and proper, s’welp me.” Musgrave gave a smile and went to clap Lestrade on the back, stopping himself at Lestrade’s expression. Lestrade wasn’t completely at ease with this Upper Ten Thousand bonhomie. “I suppose...it’s the human condition,” Musgrave said eventually. “Isn’t it, to want what we can’t have. Or what we’ve had and lost.” This last was a mere breath of sound, a whispered regret.

“A death.” Lestrade’s stern words made Musgrave jump, jolting him from his haze. “You said a death has occurred.”

“And someone’s gone insane.” Sherlock added with relish.

Musgrave nodded. “I saw immediately the safe had been opened and the parchment disturbed. Then we were alerted that a body had been found in the chapel. Brunton, the butler. But here’s what’s strange.”

“ _Finally,_ ” Sherlock sighed, scowling at Lestrade when the latter stood on his foot.

“There were no marks on the body. No signs of violence or injury or illness...but the chapel was locked – from the inside!”

Sherlock’s joyous grin split his face. This was as good as a belated Christmas box and early Twelfth Night trifle to him. “And the insanity? _What!_ ” Sherlock exclaimed at Lestrade’s kick to his ankle.

“The maid, well, head maid and thus housekeeper. We don’t... Oh yes. Raving. Babbling. Had to be locked in her room for her own safety,” Musgrave said. “You see? It’s very bad to even think about the mystery.”

“What, the old Musgrave Riddle?” They whipped around to see Piers, mouth sticky and discoloured with sweetmeats or jujubes, some of which adhered to his coat. He didn’t learn, the mutton-head. “Supposed to be a class-one headscratcher, ain’t it. Involving the whole estate, the entire house and grounds.”

As they stared at him, and he turned round to see what they were looking at, Lestrade recalled the gangly, buck-toothed, ginger-haired youth had a strange knack of picking up gossip and crumbs of information, even supposedly privileged items. People possibly just started talking in front of him, him not looking as if he understood. Much. Now Piers was nodding.

“Something no one can crack. The uncrackable. The unsolvable.” He ignored Lestrade’s _stop now_ signals. “The inexplicable. The unpenet –”

“Aesc. I gather from your remarks about the maid-cum-housekeeper that your household is shambolic and has been even before the death and insanity,” Sherlock said, his voice as crisp and tart as an early season apple.

“A...little.”

“Hence your bolt for Town. Where you ran into some old friends and invited them to sojourn with you.” Sherlock wore that quick-sharp smile that made Lestrade nervous. Usually with good reason.

“What? You mean...you’ll come to Musgrave House?” Musgrave, attuned enough to his friend to understand the ruse being laid out, gazed hard into Sherlock’s eyes and caught at his sleeve.

“Sherlock, we can’t.” Lestrade took Sherlock’s arm, having to free it from Musgrave, oh such a pity, to turn him a little. “We’ve got commitments.” He made him look over to where John, Captain Watson, was busy striding up and down between a group of young lads lying on their stomachs on the ice. The series of cracks and pops and clangs announced John was teaching them how to shoot at marks. The armful of prizes John bore, and the disgruntled look of the stallholder, was testament to the captain’s prowess.

“For all it would nice to get out of the Old Smoke, what with this London Particular we’ve had for weeks…” Lestrade hated the fogs. That cloud of darkness on the street was a crook’s best ally.

“To see in the New Year in the countryside,” Sherlock finished for him. “In a big country house famous for its park, replete with follies and ha-has and caverns and, if I’m not mistaken, a Reflecting Pool.”

Especially when that whipster Gregson does nothing but humbleboast about how tired he is from his duties at the regent’s massive palace in Brighton, and huge weekend retreat place, Lestrade thought.

“There’s no case you can’t crack, lambling,” he murmured. “Bet you’d solve this ancient riddle in a trice. But...we do have responsibilities, what with that open house you’re holding for all your young helpers.”

“Most of whom have never been outside London in their lives, you know,” Sherlock remarked.

“I can believe it.” Lestrade looked at the group of urchins, laughing and shouting in joy at their treat, an afternoon and evening out on a frozen river.  “Be a shame for them to be back on the streets just because you’ve gone away.”

“But to think otherwise would be –”

“A dreadful imposition on a host. Even one who likes giving the largesse,” Lestrade finished, in his best Viscount Holmes voice.

“Quite. And a deuced inconvenience. And awful expense. Especially...if the host is an unwitting one.” The two grinned at each other, and Sherlock, gaze still locked with Lestrade’s, called out, “Aesc!”

“Hullo?” Musgrave finished trying to wipe down Piers and avoid the sticky stick-apple he was crunching, a fruitless, thankless task.

“We’d love to come...and you did intimate the House was in need of more help and organisation? Lucky then that we’ll be bringing a…couple of servants with us…”

“Oh, and your personal physician…” Lestrade added.

As if hearing them, Dr Watson looked over and waved.

 

“Mrs Hudson.” Sherlock spoke over the rattling of the carriage, cutting into the latest round of Travelling Piquet, a game he detested. “Remind me again about the chit?” He pointed to the carriage’s roof.

“The ch – She has a name: Molly!” Mrs Hudson admonished. “She’s our new maid, Sherlock, for the tenth time. She had to quit the Polstead’s, what with things as they were.”

“You mean with Countess Polstead arranging for the earl to be offed and making it look like an accident.” Sherlock pursed his lips.

“And she’s lasted longer than any maid we’ve found so far,” Mrs Hudson continued, her look at her employer pointed. “She’s no knocksoftly – you’ve said yourself how clever she is, with her reading and writing and what have you. And she gets the doctor’s cuffs just how he likes them. She’s a light touch but firm hand with the starch. Ooh, flock of sheep! That’s thirty to me.” Sherlock flinched.

“And pray enlighten me again as to the why and how of you gracing us with your kind presence, good lady?” Musgrave asked her.

“Housekeeper. Get your place in order,” Sherlock said for her, his scowl thickening as Lestrade called out, “Post chaise! Ten to me.”

“And one more thing. Why is Piers…” Aesc couldn’t even formulate the question, instead pointing a weak finger upwards, whence Piers’s voice could be heard crying a, “Hah-yah!” to the team he was driving.

“He…went undercover as a coachman a while ago,” Lestrade tried to explain. “It’s a yard and a half of a tale.” He shrugged.

“And this brave, capable-looking fellow is your personal physician, you say,” Aesc commented, nodding at John and receiving a peaceable _how do_ in reply.

“And soldier. Bodyguard. Able second. Depends,” came Sherlock’s reply.

“Lately… _writer_ , I do believe.” Aesc smiled at John, showing most of his teeth. Lestrade hoped he must be imagining the flash of blue mischief in those gleaming eyes.

“Well, I do seem to be enjoying something of a modest success.” John smiled back.

“Capital!” Aesc exclaimed. This time the glint of devilry was bright.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” It seemed Musgrave’s sparks had kindled fire in Sherlock. Lestrade closed his eyes for a second of respite. Ignoring Mrs Hudson’s hissed, “ _Sherlock!_ ” Sherlock continued, “It’s hardly the _London Magazine_ _or Blackwood’s_ , now is it. Indeed I believe, they both…passed on your tale, which eventually found its way, in an even more lurid and sensationalist form than it was wrought – yes; I know – into the _Penny Belle Assemblée_ , a weekly which does nothing but ape its similarly titled better, _La_ _Belle Assemblée_!”

“ _Sherlock,_ ” warned Lestrade. If His Viscountship uttered the expression _penny dreadful_ or any play on it again, he’d –

“I’m sorry, but it even stole the title! Adding the _Maids, Wives and Widows’ Gazette_ after doesn’t mitigate it! And you should be sorry _, L’Estrange of Bow Street_ , _the Ardent Agent_ , perpetually and somewhat inexplicably leaping from moonlit rooftop to moonlit rooftop in fashionable London after that arch-criminal _Le Fantôme_ as you do each week!”

“Are you finished?” _L’Estrange_ queried.  

“Yes,” came after half a minute. “For the nonce,” came under his breath.

“Well, that certainly brought the pot to boil,” Aesc murmured, hastily shifting his ankle that had received a kick. Really, the two were worse than a pair of puppies nipping and yipping in a basket, Lestrade thought. He pitied their teachers and tutors. “And I’m glad to have a fearless and experienced public officer in my party, and of course I’m happy to recompense you or Bow Street for the privilege,” Aesc continued. This came with a nod and a smile. “Oh – a parson riding a grey horse! Game to me!” This with a bigger smile.

“I wasn’t ready – start again?” floated down in Piers’s voice from on high, coinciding with Sherlock’s, “Gaaahhh!”

“Yes of course! Do you need the rules explaining again? Remember it’s not just counting hoofpadders,” Aesc enquired, standing up to stick his head out of the window. It had taken them a while to understand that Piers’s yells of, “One to me! and “Three to me!” and so on were the result of him counting pedestrians they passed. Sherlock sank down into his greatcoat, letting its collar cover his face.

“Well, I do believe I have all my festive season guests down now.” Aesc included them all in his twinkling smile, no mean feat.

None of them said nothing about the carriage following. As Sherlock had pointed out, the ragamuffins had probably never been out of London. Musgrave, who seemed keen as mustard on good works, would be pleased as old Sam the beadle’s man to be doing them a service, Lestrade reckoned. And he himself was enjoying this game of Prick-Points, as immature as it was. It seemed a harmless entertainment, to while away a journey, that, like all coach excursions, was a tad boring and –

“ _Highwayman!_ ” came in a cheeped-off cry from the seat up top, and the coach swerved under the force of the emotion.

“That’s not a category, Piers… Oh. He means it!” Aesc said.

There was a huge click as seven pistols were engaged.

“You’ve not got one?” Lestrade asked Sherlock, who shook his head and scowled. “Two?” Lestrade queried of Mrs Hudson.

“Oh, I find it easier to fire with both hands at once, dear,” she replied. “After all the time I spent at the rodeo in Flor… Well.” She checked the barrels with a practiced eye.

“Gaining!” Piers cried, swerving again. And it was true – a black-clad figure solidified into view, slim, poised, night-cloaked and plume-hatted on a pitch-black steed. Thin winter sunlight glinted off the deadly looking pistol the cove carried, and the sword slung at the rider’s side.

“Slow down!” Sherlock ordered, his eyes narrowed as he stared behind them.

“What, provoke a confrontation?” Lestrade queried, gripping his firearm tightly.

“Don’t fire yet,” Captain Watson counselled them in the slackening-pace carriage. “Don’t shoot – at all! Sherlock? Why does he never wait for the vehicle to halt?”

“Because he’s an idiot,” Lestrade answered, following Sherlock through the opened door and hurrying to him to face the rider, the pale-faced, dark-eyed rider, beautifully accoutred, slim legs turned to advantage in velvet knee-breeches and silk stockings… Surely those limbs were –

‘“The best legs in London’!” Sherlock shouted across the narrowing gap. Lestrade wasn’t of that opinion. Sherlock indicated the well-appointed and mounted figure. “You’re over-egging the pudding, _highwayman_. Isn’t that your costume from act three of that continuation play, _She Could So She Did_?”

“Act two,” corrected the newcomer, leaping down from the horse, charmingly short of breath from the wild ride. She shouldered her cloak aside and swept off her plumed hat, revealing the loose black waves of hair and shrewd black eyes of Irene Adler. The Woman.

“Ah yes. ‘La Adler displays an Italian boyishness’…” Sherlock quoted. “What is that, anyway?”

“Something that gets me a guinea a performance, dearie!” Irene quipped. “So you’d know my legs anywhere, would you.” This probably wasn’t addressed to Sherlock, Lestrade felt, joining them.

“What do you want,” Sherlock sighed.

“You!” This with a flash of those eyes dubbed everything from ebony to midnight at Lestrade, who joined them. “I’ve been looking for you. Some dreadful little Captain-Queernabs at Bow Street told me where you’d gone, so I set off in pursuit.”

She probably would think Bradstreet shabby, Lestrade reflected. _He_ did.

“I need help.” Irene drew closer and looked around before continuing. She laid a slim, pale hand on Lestrade’s chest. “ _Your_ help, Inspector. Things…happened, perhaps they shouldn’t have, but they did, and I…find myself in a predicament and well, I…have to get married.”

Sherlock’s indrawn breath sounded like a dagger being sharpened on a whetstone, and the glare he turned on Lestrade could have frozen marrow in bones. Lestrade shook his head hastily.

“No one has to get married these days, dear. Not with modern medicine,” was heard, and Lestrade turned to see Mrs Hudson’s head sticking out of the carriage window before it withdrew to ask, “Isn’t that so, Doctor?”

“Not that!” The scorn dripping from Irene’s tones was could have curdled milk into whey in a trice. “I need to be unobtainable, so Ernest won’t so much as look at me anymore. He’s besotted with me, you see. I’ve quite bewitched him, but he won’t make advances on a wedded woman. It’s one thing to take…paramours from the world of the theatre – Prinny with Sarah; Billy with Dora, but Ernest is insisting I marry him, I’m afraid. Says he must have me.”

Sounds as if he has, Lestrade thought.

“And I bet Ernest’s parents, whoever they are, are laying out a tidy sum for the nuptials not to happen,” Sherlock said.

“George and Charlotte? Well, a little.” Her smile was catlike.

“Ernest? I thought your beau was called Andrew.” Sherlock frowned.

“Earl of St Andrews is one of his titles, yes. His main handle is Prince Ernest of Hanover, Duke of Cumberland.” Irene polished a weighty ring on her middle finger. “He’s threatening to blow his brains out else.”

“If he’s like the rest of the family, I don’t think he can be that good a shot,” Sherlock said. “And if he’s like the rest of the family, couldn’t you just hide until he loses interest? The time it takes you to get your coiffeur should do it.”

“Sherlock. I rather think my charms are a little better than that.” She glared at him. “Well?” This sharply to Lestrade. “I’ve helped you out enough.”

“I…I…” was as far as he got, then dreaded she took it as the aye aye of acquiescence.

“Madam.” They turned to stare at Musgrave exiting the carriage, all legs and torso and swept-back red-gild waves of hair. He swept a bow down to the floor and only coughed a little at the dust. “Aesc Musgrave. I had the pleasure of attending your sitting to Sir Thomas when he painted you as Mirrorball in the sequel play, _The Way of the Worldly_.”

Irene shaded her eyes. “Lord Musgrave?”

“Indeed, he,” he replied. “At your service. And I mean that. It would be a rare high honour to be leg-shackled to you. I’ll gladly help you into parson’s mousetrap.” And every one of his teeth showed as he smiled.

“Oh. Well, it probably wouldn’t come to an actual ceremony.” Irene frowned.

“Just marriage by the left hand,” Sherlock murmured.

“A Twelfth Night plighting of the troth to the darling of Drury Lane…how could any man gainsay you? Madam?” And Aesc held out his arm, smirking at Sherlock as he helped Irene into the vehicle. Lestrade felt limp with relief. He’d never been in the heat of a battlefield, but he believed he knew how it felt to have dodged a bullet.

“It’s rather cramped in here.” Sherlock glared around as they rattled off. “Are we to collect any more waifs and strays of the road?”

“Just be glad my maids are travelling in my coach.” Irene pointed behind her. “With my luggage.” The carriage was piled high. “I didn’t know what to pack. I didn’t know where we were going. Where are we going?”

They told her. “Oh. But isn’t that around here? Shouldn’t we be seeing the prospect? Why are we…in these enormous woods instead?”

“Well, I hope it’s not to stop for a picnic. Not in this huge forest.” Mrs Hudson gathered her lap blankets closer and peered out of the window as they continued for a while.

“Ah, well, it’s Romantic, you see.” John nodded. “I had to study it recently, you remember.” He swept a hand around, indicating the slopes of the hills on either side of them, amongst which turrets and pinnacles of…things could be glimpsed, and the rushing river they were following alongside of, tumbling and skipping over arrangements of rocks and under bridges. Dark, flat darts of fish could be glimpsed in the crystal clearness. A herd of deer turned and watched the carriage, and large birds started into flight and settled again in copses of dark green trees. “We’re experiencing awe. And possibly apprehension. We’re confronting the sublimity of nature untamed and its picturesque qualities. Nature is all powerful and will eventually overcome the transient wishes of men.”

“Well, it has, more or less here,” said Aesc. “The parkland gets mostly left to its own devices.”

In the silence that followed, Lestrade watched it dawn on people that this must be the Musgrave estate.

“And the wilderness provokes intense emotion. It’s an authentic source of aesthetic experience and… Ah.” John gave in with a blush. They’d turned onto a gentle slope and the dark green of the surroundings became lighter and the vegetation thinned out to become a huge square of grass, perhaps some sort of sports field and adjacent pavilion and bower-looking structures Lestrade couldn’t even guess the names of. Hoped he wouldn’t be asked, as they bowled alongside it.

“Yes, well, we do keep up the garden,” Aesc explained.

“Ohhhh.” Irene craned her neck to take it all in, practically clambering onto Lestrade’s knees to get a view of the prospect from his side of the carriage, until tipped off. By Sherlock. Of course. “What would be…the ratio of…parkland to garden, one wonders?”

“Three thousand to fourteen.” Aesc’s reply was prompt.

“And that’s…acres?” At Aesc’s nod, Irene’s second, “Ohhhhh,” was even longer and quieter.

“But he doesn’t keep a London house,” said Sherlock, all sweet-sugar regret.

“As of yet,” Aesc added, aiming part of his smile at him. The path forked at a large oval of grass. “I say, Piers, veer to the right. The left goes straight to the courtyard at the west façade but the right approach takes us along the south façade, the front of the house. It’s more impressive. I want to make a good first impression, especially on my intended.”

Lestrade hadn’t glimpsed the house as they drove, but now he looked his fill. What had he been expecting, some honey-coloured mansion, all square set with columns and bow windows? Because this, this, was a _castle_ , surely?  No; a manor house? At least? Sort of fawnlike-grey, not unpleasant, immense and E-shaped. No; H-shaped? Wait – something sticking out and up behind, so J-shaped? Two wing bits anyroad, sticking out either end of the main rectangle. And all those windows! And all the bits of roof, all with more windows, and were those turrets, or battlements? And that dome thing on top….

He eyed the balconies or crenulations, or whatever they were. Betted you could walk along ’em. Musgrave as a kid probably had. What had he called this, the front, the south. So did that mean all the sides of the house had a compass bearing? Well, didn’t that just wrap the parcel in silk ribbon. And funny, the house seemed to fit with both the wilderness of the estate and its more manicured garden.

The rest of the party looked stunned. Well, most of them. Sherlock wasn’t looking up the flight of stone steps they were at the bottom of, up to the portico. No; he was frowning over yonder, at some wrought-iron work, and scowling back the way they’d come at the carriages trailing them. Not just their two, but another. Noise came from the gated-off courtyard, which Lestrade presumed was the stable block.

“We just use that west entrance, through the _cour d'honneur_ , to the westwing usually. We live in that bit, the family, traditionally, I mean.” Musgrave was staring at the main door and distracted from his lecture. “So I don’t know what these carriages are, unless… Oh no!”

There was a flicker of movement at the door, and with a click of the tongue, he bounded out of the coach.

“Was that on the curriculum at your school, jumping from moving vehicles?” Lestrade queried, as they followed Musgrave. “Only you’re a dab hand at it too.”

“No. Just the classics,” answered Sherlock, his scowl scrunching into the grin Lestrade loved seeing there. Loved putting there.

“Like that. That’s Grecian.” Piers spoke with the pride of the Oxford scholar he was. They followed the direction of his point to watch the woman in a loose Greek-revival dress drift down the steps. Her long hair was caught up in a loose knot at the nape of her neck and a shawl was wrapped around her upper arms.

“Mother? Surely you cancelled the traditional New Year festivities, what with father’s death?” Musgrave called out as she reached them.

_Mother?_ She barely looked a decade older than the lad, thought Lestrade, looking at the tall, slim female figure in the low-cut, floating, beribboned dress and soft sandals regarding them in mild bemusement.

“It’s I, Aesc, Mother,” added Musgrave.

“Oh, I thought you had,” she answered. “People keep arriving… Hullo. How nice to welcome you.” She turned large grey doe eyes on them and held out her hand quite at random. Molly was nearest so shook it first and curtseyed. What Lestrade had taken for a key on a ribbon was a pencil, he now saw. Another couple were pushed through her hair, and the charming basket she carried over the crook of an arm contained a sheaf of papers. They seems to be symbols. One blew off, so he bent and scooped it up, returning it with a bow. “Oh,” said the woman, staring at him. She licked her lips.

“Stop it,” hissed Sherlock at his side.

“I can’t stop it – I’m not doing anything! I don’t ever do anything!” Lestrade burst out. “I’ve told you, I can’t help it if there’s something about me that gets all these high and mighty high society ladies hot and both –” He stopped, horrified.

“Introductions.” Aesc clapped his hands. “My lady mother, the Dowager Lady Musgrave.”

“ _Dowager?_ ” Irene exclaimed unseen. Lestrade was amazed. Surely this Musgrove cove wasn’t wed?

“Probably her way of telling him to get on with it,” Mrs Hudson whispered.

“My mother likes the word.” Musgrave shrugged.

“Oh yes.” Lady Musgrave lifted her face to the sky. “Dowwwaggger. It sounds so exotic. Like retirement from the seraglio to the life of an anchorite.”

“And there’s Dowager’s Hump,” Sherlock said, into the silence.

“Mother. You remember my friend, Sherlock, Viscount Holmes,” Aesc said in a rush.

“Of course not!” cried his mother. “I can’t even remember this morning. Not when I’m entwined with Sappho.”

“Mother’s translating her lyrics,” Aesc said into the longer silence. “Well, Mother, he’s the cleverest chap in London. He’ll devise all sorts of entertainments.” Aesc tried a smile. “And this is Inspector Lestrade, a public officer, from Bow Street. It’s quite the fashion to have one at gatherings now, so we’re very lucky to have him as a guest. And meet Dr Watson. Sherlock doesn’t travel without him. And seeing as we’re so busy, I’ve brought us a proper housekeeper, Mrs Hudson.”

“Oh thank the Lord. Do you read Greek?” asked Lady Musgrave, clutching Mrs H.

“And a new maid.” Aesc pulled Molly up from the curtsey she was still in. “And this strapping young man is –”

“Head coachman,” said Piers. “By your leaf, missus.” He winked and fondled his tinhorn. looking for all the world like he’d just come off the Great North Road.

“And these people in this second coach?” queried the lady in her sweet, faraway tones as it halted, stopped, and a tatterdemalion of urchins tumbled out.

“I…They…” Aesc gave up.

“Well, here’s your new butler!” Sherlock clapped Dimmock on the back as the small man dismounted from the driving box. He’d been eager enough to come along. Served him right, thought Lestrade. “And a footman.” He dragged a youth forward. The journey had whipped his black hair into messier spikes.

“Coo, indoors at last,” breathed Billy. “Promotion.” 

“Yes, to a catchfart, following that close behind the mistress,” muttered Wiggins. 

“A…valet,” Sherlock continued, pointing at the speaker, and went right on through stable hand to coal boy and…potato boy. He glared at the puzzled looks that last gleaned. “Could’ve gone with boot boy,” Lestrade murmured. 

A cough was heard. “And the most beauteous for last, my fiancée, Miss Irene Adler!” Aesc cried, lighting up like a Roman Candle as he handed her from the carriage, just as hers bowled up.

“Oh.” His mother looked at them. “Aren’t you promised to the neighbour girl, who’s bringing all her lands to the estate when her father dies?” she asked her son.

“Am I? No one told me,” replied Aesc.

“Oh, I expect your father didn’t want to worry you. It’s how I came here. Well, next time.” His mother shrugged, a gentle flutter of draperies. She put a hand on Irene’s arm. “How do you do. I suppose you’ll want to see the jewels and plate and art collection and so on before we send for the parson?” She held out a hand, and an amazed Irene allowed herself to be pulled up the steps. “I do like your costume,” was heard, in those lilting tones. “Do you have any more?”

“Take the carriage to the stables through that archway at the other end of the yard, please, erm, Jack Coachman,” Aesc directed, leading them into the courtyard as more people arrived. “Mrs Hudson, Molly, erm, Dimmock? Please be so kind as to enter and see if you can organise the crew. My thanks.” Mrs Hudson looked determined, Dimmock businesslike and Molly terrified as the three led the youths into the house, via the side entrance.

“So we have to solve this riddle – when we find this riddle – in midst of a country house party?” queried Lestrade, looking as the carriages clip-clopped through the arch. He glimpsed a drive beyond and longer wings of buildings. “A party attended by the neighbourhood landed gentry and the top drawer Quality and clever-devil literary and language coves?” And him. Lestrade. Not…any of that.

“Hmm. Yes.” Sherlock glanced at him. “Aesc! This court will serve.”

“For…”

“Our accommodations.” Sherlock forced a door and stuck his head in. It seemed satisfactory. “We need to be able to come and go easily. Yes, myself, Lestrade and John will do fine here.”

“I should think so.” Aesc was resigned. “It’s my hideaway bachelor quarters. Welcome.”

He stood back as a servant arrived through the archway with their valises. Not one of their lads, Lestrade saw. The estate seemed supplied with labour. Maybe it was just all in a Devonshire bustle with the two head servants...gone. He could understand. He’d hate to see 221 with no Mrs H. Or Bow Street without Sally. He took a look around the yard, getting his bearings. So this was the west side. The courtyard’s other two bits, making the square with the house and the railings, were two rows of long buildings at right angles. Not squat little barns, more like four town houses, what with them being three floors high, if you counted the attics. He supposed there to be four as the creeper-covered arch-shaped niche broke this side into two, just as the archway split the other.

Taking a deep breath of the Virginia creeper, the peppery knee-sized privacy hedge shielding the building, the winter-dry bushes in tubs either side of the door, and the sandy gravel floor, he followed Sherlock and John inside to what was more of a simple cottage than a town house. Nice.

“Up here!” called Sherlock, making Lestrade follow him upstairs to the large bedroom. Musgrave’s bedroom, where the host and guest were staring at each other, folded-armed. “Back me up, Lestrade. We’ll need this.” He flickered his gaze towards the double bed, then back to Musgrave. “The two singles in the other room will suit you and John.”

“Oh.” Musgrave eyed Lestrade, then switched his gaze back to Sherlock. Lestrade had a sudden image of two cats, or perhaps a cat and a dog, eyeing the other and neither blinking. “You mean...”

“That we’re...backgammon players, yes. Gentlemen of the back door. Rear parlour ushers. I could go on.”

Lestrade gritted his teeth at Sherlock’s speech and the challenge in it. It was the equivalent of throwing down an ace at cards.

“Taken, I was going to say. Spoken for,” Musgrave added hastily as Sherlock opened his mouth, presumably to enlighten his friend, in even more vernacular cant, as to who did what to whom. Musgrave tore his gaze from Sherlock to Lestrade, but it swung back to Sherlock. He gave a light laugh and a wide smile, turning his hands out in a shrug. “Yes, I agree that gives a need for the bigger bed! The room’s yours.”

“Oi, less of the beargarden jaw, you. You watch that Billingsgate tongue around the Quality.” Lestrade raised a warning finger to his kidling.

“I’m Quality,” Sherlock protested, and Musgrave laughed, this time a little easier.

“You most certainly are. A most rare and strange quality. As is your amour, I strongly suspect.” He bowed to them both. “May I give you a word of advice? Don’t enlighten my mother as to your romantic relationship. Or she’ll only pursue with a list of question for her writing, for her, erm, original novel on Achilles and Patroclus. And most original it is, to be sure...”

“Fine. Now, locked chapel, dead body?” Sherlock said, shoving Musgrave from the room.

I’ll never understand the ways of the gentry, Lestrade thought, following. Still, he quite liked their accommodations, and the courtyard made a pretty and almost private garden space. He took another glance around, his gaze falling on the archway of the back wall. It was crowned with a clock tower, and he wondered what sound the chimes made. He fancied he could make out a carved, curly letter E on its side. “Elizabeth?” he said out loud.

“It started off Elizabethan but finished off Carolean by way of Jacobean,” Aesc, ever the proud host, explained.

“No, the tower–”

“That’s on an axis with and a complement to the house’s cupola.” Aesc indicated the house’s roof.

“The dome thing,” Sherlock translated for him, and Aesc laughed and ushered them up the steps into the house.


	3. Chapter Three

“John, please attend the maid, de facto housekeeper…”

“Rachel Howells,” Aesc supplied at Sherlock’s raised brow. He jerked on a bell pull, then bade the maid who appeared in the entrance space, a space about as big as the house Lestrade had grown up in, he reckoned, to convey Dr Watson to Howells’s room down the service stairs. “Is the good doctor usually so quiet?” he asked.

“Oh, he’ll be soaking everything up,” Lestrade said.

“And getting a bucketful of salt and white vinegar,” Sherlock added, to Lestrade’s incomprehension. “To polish –”

“The silver forks!” Aesc finished for him. “That’s his next genre, the fashionable novel? He’s providing an outsider’s insight into the folly, caprice, insolence and affectation of a certain class?”

“Maybe combine that with his current success. Elegant and aristocratic manners at a country house party where there’s a mystery or a crime,” Lestrade suggested. “Art imitating life.”

“Art? Art?” spluttered Sherlock. “You call _that_ art?”

More like this was. All of it. If Lestrade had thought the side entrance room, all sophas and tables and rugs and busts and waist-high bookcases, had been lovely, and the room it gave onto, massive and panelled and swinging with tapestries, imposing, then this main hall was, well.. He had no more suitable adjectives left in store. Maybe gigantic? It was as big as a circus tent. No; maybe a theatre. He was well aware his comparisons were out of keeping with the majesty and beauty around him.

“The Marble Hall,” Aesc commented, pointing at the floor of black and white squares. “We could have gone another way, but I wanted to show it off to you.” He looked about Billy’s age as he blushed a little. Through the open front door Lestrade just had time to glimpse the main steps down and the drive they’d come up in their carriage, and marvel at the huge circular staircase to the right, before a party trailed through behind them.

“Oh.” Lady Musgrave seemed surprised to see them. Lestrade was surprised – surely that half-dress, all the latest shout in Apollo-and-aurora striped percale the woman was wearing, was one he’d seen…The Woman wearing?

“I again, Mother,” said her son.

“Yes. Aesc and so on. I’m just taking these tabbies for cat-lap, if you want to join us?”

Lestrade wondered if the neighbour girl, Aesc’s long-promised, was among the small group of women Lady Musgrave was preparing to have tea with.

“La Adler’s choosing a stone to have reset into an engagement ring,” Lady M continued. “She couldn’t make up her mind so she’s selecting a goodly few gems and designing herself several, to go with different dresses. It’s the new fashion now, in London, it seems? She’s sent for her jeweller.”

“Of course.” Aesc’s smile was a little weaker than usual, compared to his mother’s serene, sunny beam.

“The blonde with the popping eyes clenching her fists,” Sherlock murmured, motioning with his head towards a very milk-and-water miss on the edge of the gaggle. “She looks as if she has hidden reserves, though. The Woman had best look out.”

“She’s good at looking out. For herself,” Lestrade capped. She was making the best of her surprise affiancing, certainly.

Their host led them through into an equally sumptuous room behind the hall and clutched Sherlock when he went to pass through that, as if into the far wing of the house. “Oh, not the house chapel,” he said, divining Sherlock’s intent. “The church chapel. In the grounds.”

Lestrade hadn’t realised his kidlet was so familiar with the place. He’d have to ask him all about… What was that? He felt like the gloakest gawker, and would have a crick in his neck, way he was walking about with his head tilted back to take it all in, especially now as he tried to make out the tiny carving up on the top of the flattened column thing on the wall. Was it a mother and child? Oh –

“You’re not Papists?” he enquired.

“Mother certainly isn’t. She’s a Hellenist. No; the family’s Protestant. Oh, don’t worry. It’s not any sort of holy Roman Catholic church. You won’t be corrupted or offended!”

Lestrade allowed the clap on the back this time. He hardly noticed it, once the gardens were revealed. He barely heard Aesc’s explanations of how his mother had poured all her dowry into gardening, before she discovered Attic literature, just marvelled at the tree-lined avenue rolling down from the door to the fountain-trickling pond, and, beyond, all the different symmetrical hedge- and statue- and urn- and wall-lined paths branching off from little round clearings.

He followed the pair, letting their guide’s words such as _rose gardens_ and _tulip gardens_ and _pleasure gardens_ and _leisure gardens_ and _rockery_ and _rookery_ and _Orangery_ – ha ; right about that one. Was there a lemonery – and _nuttery_ and probably bread-and-buttery, in the kitchen gardens, why not, roll over him. The place looked beautiful, even in the depths of winter with a white frosting over the breadths and depths, making you guess at the beauties unseen. What must it look like in summer, bursting with life, blazing with colour and rich with scent?

“Autumn’s my favourite season here.” Mind reader, like Sherlock was he, Musgrave? “Mother prefers spring. I hope you’ll come back often and see the place in all the different seasons.” Hard to feel miffed at him though.

The church was a grey stone building with a pinnacle tower set amongst the trees and bushes just behind the plain, rectangular Orangery. The small grounds with their monuments and tombs were tucked away. Picturesque, John might have told them, and probably quoted from Byron, to back it up.

“Ha-Ha,” said Sherlock, pointing out to the parkland behind the church. His remark meeting silence, he nudged Aesc.

“And just what’s so funny?” asked Aesc, looking startled. “Oh, I’d forgotten that!” The pair of them tittered liked maids in a marketplace.

“I don’t see the joke,” Lestrade butted in. “Are you talking about that concealed ditch thing there?”

“Yes. It’s a landscape design feature to make a vertical barrier between the park and garden without ruining the view, like erecting a wall would.”

“Keeps the deer off one’s nuts.”

Sherlock sniggered at their host’s words.

“Known as a Ha-Ha,” Musgrave added. “So add that to the follies” – he pointed at a tower rising in the distance and what looked ruins nestling in a couple of hills – “And you have the perfect country house…clichés.”

“And with the cascades, the trifecta. And every one of which you adore,” said Sherlock, opening the door with a large metal key he’d seemingly plucked from his host’s pocket. “Do hurry. I need to examine the… Oh. It’s gone?” Lestrade wandered around the mostly Norman building, choking on that damp-cold-stone stench of shut-up buildings everywhere as Aesc explained that yes, they didn’t tend to leave dead bodies lying around and no, Brunton wasn’t buried here and…

Mostly Musgraves were, Lestrade saw, looking at the family memorial tombs in the funerary chapel bit. It was mostly a crypt, for the head of the family in each generation, he supposed, gazing a glance at the stone effigies on the slabs. There was a large, ornate and very old-looking one in the middle, with other, smaller ones slotted in over time, left to right in order of age, he guessed. One figure hugged a stone sword. A woman in a wimple clasped a small open book. The king-sized one clutched a rolled-up scroll. A couple held hands, united down the years. The last pulled Lestrade’s gaze to Sherlock, got him wondering...

Needing a respite, he walked away slightly to run a hand down a stolid, indifferent central pillar and hold the other out to see if any shaft of sunlight would strike through the stained glass and colour it. Some of the pictures were Biblical scenes, easy to understand. A couple seemed mere patterns. Lines and curves. None graced him with their hues.

“Here?” Sherlock asked, kneeling to survey the ground before the screen blocking off the mausoleum section. He blew on his magnifying glass. “A lot of footprints, of course.”

Aesc again apologised for people having entered to move the body.

Lestrade looked around a little more, stroking a finger as he went down the cold stone head and shoulders of some ancient bishop, honoured on a pillar. “Mary,” he said, seeing more mother and child motifs on some of the older stone tombs as well as a stained glass panel and up in the vaulting.

“A family name,” Aesc said. “Well, a fairly common name, isn’t it.”

“I’ll have to view the body, of course.” Sherlock frowned at them as though they were denying him a treat. “What was the cause of death given as?”

“Heart failure. He _was_ getting on.”

“Did you see the corpse?”

From Musgrave’s face he had, and hadn’t enjoyed it. “He looked…frightened. Well, so would anyone, dying, I suppose? Strained, which again, would be in keeping? Or are you thinking –”

“I don’t believe in anything like that.” The twosome seemed well able to converse in half words.

“Are you finished?” Lestrade interrupted. “Let’s go.” Outside, he looked back at the building. Where you might have expected to see a coat or arms carved over the door, perhaps, there was a faint relief of a letter. An _I_? An _L_? Definitely not an _E_ , like on the clock tower. Funny. “Hey, lock up, chick-a-biddy,” he chided his uncaring love, taking a huge breath of the sharp cold air.

“So you keep the church, chapel, whatever, locked, normally? With this one and only key? That you keep with you now. And which is usually kept where?” He took his notebook out and licked the end of his pencil, raising his eyebrows at Musgrave. He caught Sherlock’s look. “What? What, chuck?”

“Nothing. I…I just like watching you at work, is all.” That slight pink washing over Sherlock’s face was a better colour than any of the tints in those silly windows. Lestrade smiled his pleasure.

“You two…must tell me how you met.” Musgrave’s voice came as an interruption.

“You’re…looking at it,” Lestrade said, making his hard stare and reproving tone announce _and that’s all you’re getting, tongue-pad_. “The key…kept in your study? And you noticed it was gone when they came to tell you the butler’s body had been found here?”

“No; it was in place.”

“Then why say the door was locked from the inside? Someone could have killed him there, or seen him die there, locked him in and replaced the key.”

“Oh.” Musgrave looked deflated. “Yes, of course. I never thought of that, I suppose because the key was in the study. People can’t touch things there.”

“Someone did – the Riddle,” Sherlock said. “And I’m presuming that’s the only key. The church has an old lock, and the blacksmith who fitted it is long dead. The lock has heavy wards and iron tumblers. You might get a skeleton to fit the matrix, although most would be too small and wouldn’t lift the weight of the moving parts.”

“So an accomplice then.” Lestrade cut into Musgrave’s stuttered hows and whats at Sherlock’s unorthodox knowledge. 

“Obviously. And one John should have finished interviewing by now. John! What is it? What’s happened?” 

They were back at the courtyard by now, Sherlock having led them around the house and not through it, and their host having pointed out the nuttery and the high walls of the kitchen garden as they hurried along. John, about to enter their dwelling, turned and called out, “She’s gone! Rachel Howells’s gone!” 

“What?” Aesc grabbed John’s arm. “But she was hysterical, beside herself – sedated!” 

“Whatever powder the physician prescribed and that the other maids mixed with water to administer, she spat out into a vase on her bedside table once they’d left her alone.” 

“No!” 

“And there’s more. You didn’t mention she’s Brunton’s wife?” John continued. 

“ _Is_ she?” Aesc considered. “Do I recall…yes…perhaps! But they don’t, well, occupy the same room. Never have, as far as I can remember. Barely looked at each other.” 

“Long estranged, she’s long bored with him, and suddenly something’s persuaded her to embark on this scheme, whatever it is. Come on!” said Sherlock. 

“Where.” Lestrade didn’t make it a specific question as he followed Sherlock’s ice-crunching, powdery snow-scattering dash through the clock tower arch and down the carriage drive behind it. 

“I set one of the Irregulars to watch the church, but she won’t go back there – yet. I charged a few more to watch the obvious ways off the estate…” 

As they raced, Lestrade tried hard not to think of his fictional literary almost namesake. This country estate was far removed from the London of the _Ton_ , but here he was chasing a phantom, too… 

“She waited until today as all the bustle and chaos of the arrivals would hide her escape!” Sherlock was calling over his shoulder in answer to some question. “But the Riddle remains unsolved, else she would have quit immediately.” 

“Yes, lovely,” said Lestrade as Aesc breathlessly pointed out the walled pleasure gardens to the left. “Bet those beds look a treat in summer, way those walls shelter climbing plants. Good for roses.” 

Sherlock’s series of whistles had his helpers bounding up to them, one at a time, but none had any news.

“Damn!” he cried, kicking out a ice-covered bush. “If only we could track her. If only we had –” 

“A garment of hers?” John queried, slinking a chemise-shaped something from his pocket. 

“And scent hounds?” Aesc asked, jerking his chin in the direction of the whining and yipping in the stableyard. 

 

“So this is coursing,” Lestrade asked scant minutes later, crouching against the plinth of a statue, some knight on prancing horseback, holding his panel of ripped white cotton to the nose of the black, tan and white hound leaping and straining at the leash. 

“Specifically, beagling,” Aesc cried, fighting the wind as his dog got a scent, yowled and tore away. “It’s usually a little more organised and in search of quite different prey!” 

“Hope John’s taking notes on these country manor activities,” Lestrade had time to say to Sherlock as they were pulled hand-in-hand from the warmth and bustle of the stableyard into the chill of the winter-country evening. 

“He’d be better employed studying – he’ll be organising games and pursuits to keep the males of the party occupied and out of our way whilst we search,” Sherlock replied, already just a dark shadow in winter flight against the white of the frost and the grey of the twilight. 

“What’s Musgrave trying to say?” Lestrade couldn’t hear with the wind whipping by his ears and the soft-hard crunch of the frost underfoot as he was tugged hither, into the unknown. He could barely see, either, in the thinning dusk. The hounds didn’t need to: they were scent and not sight hounds, who didn’t understand their human lead-holders couldn’t push like they could through small obstacles and hindrances that loomed suddenly, heart-stoppingly out of the dark. Lestrade felt most bedraggled as he was literally dragged through his third hedge, fortunately not backwards. 

“He’s pointing out the pinetum over yonder. It’s well worth a visit – the family have the habit of planting rare imported trees to record important events in their history,” Sherlock replied, forsaking hand-holding in favour of looping an arm round Lestrade’s waist to hold them together and bring his face to Lestrade’s ear in the dash and scramble. His breath warmed Lestrade through. 

“See, this is what I don’t get about the upper crust,” Lestrade lamented, swopping hands with the leather lead and shaking out a stiff arm. “Always overdoing things. What’s wrong with using a pencil and paper?” 

Sherlock’s chuckles were infectious, and it took them a few minutes to catch up with the others, holding whimpering, quivering hounds on the edge of a copse. 

“Trail’s cold,” Aesc said. “She got this far and –” 

“Was met by someone, took that person’s horse, and left.” Sherlock was flat on the ground, despite the dogs’ licking him and pouncing on him in joy, and Lestrade’s protests. “And that person…has gone towards the house.” He stood, and Lestrade was quicker than Aesc to pat the ice and frost from Sherlock. 

“The house?” Aesc looked back at it, narrowing his eyes. “But that means…” 

“That we have to solve the Riddle fast, before our competitor does.” Sherlock was still examining the prints, nudging John into making a drawing, despite the poor light. He looked up as a bell sounded, back over in civilisation away from the draughty, dusk-lit wood, making the beagles set up a howling. 

“Well, we can’t do anything now,” Aesc said. “That’s the dressing bell. We have to change for dinner. We have guests.” 

Lestrade tried not to laugh, or even grin. Wondered if that statement would work as an excuse back at Bow Street. _Sorry men, that’s enough investigating for the meantime. Have to go now. The dressing bell, don’t you know. Guests, see._ Yet he was glad to leave the getting chillier and eerier by the minute copse and tramp across the crispness, back to the house, to change as requested. 

 

“Don’t tell me, your guts are crying cupboard?” asked Sherlock slyly as they exited the court. He seemed to enjoy the vernacular of Lestrade’s youth that Lestrade even now sometimes gave rise to. Well, especially now. 

“You’re not exactly backwards at going forwards yourself,” countered Lestrade. “Taking those steps like a puff guts scenting free mutton! No. Not you, you shotten herring.” He ducked Sherlock’s elbow jab at being called skinny. “More like you want to poke around the house.” He half wished they could remain in the pretty entrance room. The tapestry room was unnerving, in this light, the wall hangings stirring gently with the breeze their entrance caused, as if stroked by an invisible finger, and the Marble Hall vault-like and echoing, despite the guests gathered there, admiring the pictures.

They made an uncanny scene, huddling in front of paintings in spills of wavering light provided by servants holding up lamps. The lamps’ angled smoke and thick scent added to the sense of strangeness. 

“Not so much to participate in a Dutch Golden Age grouping – have the _tableaux vivants_ started already? – as I’m curious to see which, amongst the guests, could be foolish enough to meddle with the Mus –” 

“ _Musgrave Revenant_?” one of the guests was asking Lady Musgrave, openmouthed at the tale being spun. “But I thought –”

He broke off as the longcase clock started to chime. It wasn’t on the hour, and it certainly wasn’t thirteen o’clock, but the clock didn’t stop until it had struck thirteen times. The guests looked at one another.

“Ah.” Lady Musgrave, now in a short sleeveless dress draped from one shoulder by a huge brooch so precariously as to leave a goodly portion of her upper body bare and getting barer by the minute, nodded. “Yes; I thought so,” she went on. “That means the ghost is walking. Well, we know that: the Revenant carried off poor Rachel.”

“Wouldn’t that be _revehent_ , then, if she were carried away?” Sherlock enquired.

“No; that’s more carried _back_. I always did get better marks at Latin than you,” Aesc replied, grinning when Sherlock pouted. He raised his voice. “And which ghost, Mother? The house has about half a dozen in the various wings and floors! ”

“Ahh! Here is my new darling daughter,” called Lady Musgrave, starting the applause for…The Woman, slinking her way down the giant-sized staircase as if they were the stairs at Drury Lane and she were selecting a beau for an after-performance nibble.

“ _Daughter?_ Did you get bow-hitched already?” Lestrade enquired of his host.

“I…don’t think so,” Aesc replied.

“Maybe Lady Musgrave did it for you by proxy,” John suggested. “She seems keen on having a girl in the family.”

“Hmm. Given her the emerald choker already,” Sherlock commented. The two women were embracing, and Lady M showing Irene off to the assembled. Irene had gone _à la Grecque_ with curly tendrils of hair bouncing around like a nest of little snakes and was wearing a sheer dress that must have been dampened to cling that tightly, perhaps in honour of her hostess mother-in-law, and looked disconcerted to find the older lady had one-upped her, or out-fleshed her, at both bosom and legs. She was indeed sporting a choker of precious gems – as a headband. Probably helped herself, Lestrade thought. She looked over and crooked an artfully brushed and waxed eyebrow in Lestrade’s direction, raising it to precisely the same degree and angle as the same side of her mouth, the effect set to _bewitching_. That took practice.

Aesc was visibly resisting being drawn to her side. “Well, with Ernest and you, she’s got two beaux to her string,” commented Sherlock, making Lestrade cackle and John guffaw with laughter.

“So, the puzzle?” Sherlock enquired. “I can see you’re a little chary of reading it.”

“Well, with good reason. See, this cove here…” Aesc led them to a large painting, thanking the footman who raised his torch-bearing arm higher for them to see it. “He was the last ancestor known to have attempted it. And he died in battle. Raised a private army, for some reason. Cussed old thing.”

Looked more of a cantankerous rebel and rabble rouser, to Lestrade. God knew there were enough of them about at the moment. Bread riots, stocking-frames revolts, power loom rebellions …

“Must say you keep some prime flesh about the place, Mus!” They all jumped a little at Piers’s voice behind them and were more surprised to see him back in full buck rig. He chuckled. “The coachman clobber was only a disguise, you know! I’m just a servant by day. I’m not that cakey as to miss out on dinner. And a decent bed.” He held a finger to his lips and moved his eyes from side to side.

His fellow stablehands probably thought he was someone’s kept piece, if he sneaked off at night, Lestrade reckoned. That was, if they believed his disguise and didn’t treat him as if he were queer in the attic. Quality. No accounting for it.

“Excellent for finding out information.”

Sherlock knocked his cousin’s fingers from his lips so he could speak clearly, Piers having forgotten to remove it after his gesture, making his last sentence muffled.

“So much coming and going, so many people, high and low. New people too. Half the village is employed here during the period, a goodly few in the stables. Oh, you’ve got a couple of well-known castle creepers.”

“What in Hades is that?” Lestrade asked, imagining some weevil.

“People who progress from country house to country house for as much of the year as possible,” Aesc explained. “Who’s doing which circuit, cuz?”

Sherlock nudged Lestrade – John was actually making notes.

“The de Grenvilles are stopping off here after doing the N to S ABC circuit,” Piers said.

“North to South, Alnwick, Bolton, Chatsworth,” Aesc translated. “Any more?”

“The Esterhazys are going for the triple _H_. Holywell, Hardwick and Howarth,” Piers supplied. “And the on-dit is Princess Lieven’s doing a dun dash, can’t go back to Town until her uncle dies and she bags some swag. She’ll be gone in a few days though.”

“Staying one step ahead of her creditors.” Aesc nodded. Lestrade thought it sounded abysmal. A load of seeming here and thereins with no fixed abode, like scavenger monkeys, cluttering up your house, sleeping in your beds, taking food from your mouth, and what did you get out of it?

“La Adler has kindly consented to entertain us after dinner!” cried Lady M, clapping her hands. “A selection of songs from her current hit show, _Who’s the Dupe_!”

“I’ll accompany.” It was the blonde Sherlock had pointed out earlier with more to her than met the popping-eye. Now she cracked her knuckles as she glared at Irene. Lestrade hoped there were no sharp or even blunt instruments involved in either the singing or accompanying. He’d hate to have to arrest someone on his first night there. He moved back as a bevy of footmen worked to lay a table in one corner, its hugeness dwarfed by the hall’s vastness. He hadn’t realised they’d be dining there.

“Mother probably forgot to give an order, so the staff have taken matters into their own hands,” Aesc surmised. “That butler of yours seems most officious and… Ah.” He moved behind the pointing and finger-waving and list checking and ticking Dimmock to discreetly unpin the greasy dishcloth fastened to the man’s coat, the traditional punishment commonly inflicted on a quot, someone deemed to be meddling in women’s household business. The guests were too polite to notice, but Lestrade, who hadn’t seen anything like it in years, had to cough back a guffaw.

“I think we’re all here,” said Lady H, looking at the company. “But I do seem to recall someone else was expected, who said he’d be late. Oh, who was it?”

“ _The Duke of Wellington!_ ” John pointed the trembling finger of a shaking hand at the flung-wide door through which a tall, broad-shouldered figure with a very distinctive beak was striding. “Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke and Marquess of Wellington! Field-Marshal –”

“Yes, thank you, John. Do try to make your legs stand straight and do stop wobbling.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“Should think this is worth two new saplings,” Lestrade muttered, staring at the arrival. “In the pining wood bit.”

“Where’s my dinner!” a ducal voice was bellowing, loud enough to be heard across the Iberian Peninsula, Lestrade reckoned.

“Coming, Your Grace.” Dimmock was all but curtseying.

“Coming? So’s Christmas, boy!”

Lestrade half expected the great general to give Dimmock a clip around the ear, to go with that last, but seemed the man’s bark was worse than his bite. He wasn’t glimflashy, merely abrupt and bluff, which had its own charm, as did his fondness for his ‘little Ianthe’ – Lady Musgrave – to whom he shouted endearments and sweet nothings, he being slightly deaf. The dinner soon assumed a dreamlike quality, with the wavering spills of light and flickering patches of shadow a reflection of the black and white squares of floor; the bright gleams of silver from the table and the shields and weapons high on the walls; the ripples of chatter and trills of laughter; the _tinks_ of eating irons and china, and John trying to list ideas for entertainment the duke didn’t dismiss with a, “hum drum!” or, “done to death!” until in desperation John suggested quintain, which went down fine.

But was a joust really such a good activity to have agreed upon for the morrow, wondered Lestrade, as he, Sherlock and Aesc managed to slip away from the trilling Drury Lane soprano, singing at the breakneck speed of a bolted horse to keep up with her happy-handed blonde-haired pianist. And by God, England, Harry and Saint George, the glare in La Adler’s night-black eyes swore blood vengeance. Aesc hesitated, clearly torn – and he would be, torn off a strip, probably by both women, Lestrade would wager. He wondered if he should do something, but Sherlock pulled him thither.

The study, of course, was no dusty office tucked into a corner, such as Lestrade had at Bow Street. No; this was at the top of the great staircase, just above the hall, and was an enormous library with a vaulted ceiling and carved marble chimneypiece depicting some Greek or Roman goddesses. And so many books! Lining two walls, with these shelves topped by busts set into curved niches, and on free-standing shelf units in rows down one end. The leather chairs looked inviting, but of course there was no time to look around, much less settle down. Not with Sherlock demanding to know the words of the Riddle...

“The carry witchet is as follows.” Aesc paused a moment, looking towards the window. Wind blew the branches of the tree outside, sending long, spindly dark shapes to flicker over the moonlight lying on the study floor. He coughed and read:

‘“What is it? The first and fiercest secret of a sovereign, watched over by the margrave knights in their tower pledged never to tell. Where is it? Up hill and down dale, over sea and under stone. Whose is it? Yours. Ours. But leave it gilded in silence, seek it not, speak it not.”’

“That’s it? Just that?” Sherlock broke into the silence following the hushed recitation, his tone incredulous.

“I’m afraid so. And we’re lucky to have that: some ancestor wrote it down, against orders, so of course there’s no saying if that’s the whole of it, or even if that’s how it was originally parsed. Oh, margrave was an old spelling of Musgrave, it’s believed. A variant. And the family’s always been knights. So, any ideas?” Aesc asked.

“Yes. I think so,” answered Lestrade, catching them both by surprise, thinking back to what he’d glimpsed that day, in different places on the property. What had Piers said, that the puzzle was thought to involve the whole estate, the entire house and grounds? Especially the tower, that folly, he felt. “We’ll need to examine all the buildings. He then thought of how many there could be. “The old buildings. The original ones, I mean.” Still a lot. “The main ones.”

“I see.” Sherlock smiled and Lestrade betted he did, too. “The important structures. And I know where we should start. And right now. The –”

“Grotto,” Aesc said along with Sherlock. “I thought you’d want to…experience that.” Lestrade couldn’t interpret his host’s smile. It was too complex, and maybe it was the play of shadows in the room putting that subdued, wistful light in his eyes. “I’ve had it heated for you.”

 

“Tip us your daddle,” Lestrade requested, as he and Sherlock headed out once again to the garden, only strolling this time. Sherlock immediately pushed his hand as requested into Lestrade’s, the oil lamp revealing the smile he gave at Lestrade’s regional cant. Worth playing link boy for that, Lestrade reckoned. Anytime.

“Not that rectangle of water back in the garden?” he asked. He’d glimpsed it earlier.

“No. That’s the Reflecting Pool.”

Oh yes, from that little porch that looked like a temple at one end, you’d get a reflection of the house in the still water. He’d have to look that over. And maybe the statue marking the pool’s other end. “The lake.” Whose boathouse needed searching.

“Near here, yes. Here, in fact.”

_He’s enjoying this, the barrel organ monkey! Making me hunt amongst these bushes and trees and shrubs around the lakeshore._ He paused, holding the lamp high. Hmm. That slope of the hill starting right here looked…as if it were the entrance to something. He looked at his guide.

“Well done. I hope this bodes well for our other search.” Sherlock led him behind some scrub, oh, and a small fence, and in and down, past clay stoves heating the air. Into a cave? No, what was it, a grotto. And when they were inside, its beauty made Lestrade’s breath catch in his throat. He marvelled at the glowing ceiling and walls, their glass stones borrowing from the warm pools of lighted lamps set at intervals, and reflecting the gleaming moonlight, but could hardly take his eyes off the bubbling pool of water at his feet. He bent to get a hand to a wisp of vapour puffing from it.

“Sulphur?” he queried, sniffing.

“A few minerals.” Sherlock nodded. “There’s a thermal spring here, as you probably guessed.”

“So it’s a bath, this grotto, this chamber?” He gave in, eyeing the life-size Greek- and Roman-looking statues circling the walls, set back into recesses. For a moment he’d thought they were _vivants_ , people standing painted white and immobile, posing as statues. No; just Sherlock’s remark of earlier and the stiff way the servants had been positioned in the hall had popped that thought into this head, or perhaps the way some of these larger effigies wavered in the flickering lamplight. Now, he didn’t know if he’d fancy peeling off and bathing with that audience, but supposed they’d seen it all before. They all looked bored and vacant, anyhow. He ran a finger over the jewelled-looking glass and tile mosaics on the wall, letting the patterns scrape his finger. He almost jumped at Sherlock’s arms going around him, and Sherlock’s body pressing against his back. He leaned against him to let those clever-monkey fingers strip him.

“It’s been ages,” Sherlock breathed in his ear. Lestrade agreed, then huffed out a half giggle.

“John said,” he explained, as Sherlock’s fingers stilled for a second. “Said you had to bathe me, remember? Right back that first night. Time, is it?”

He only had to wait a second for his sweetling to catch up and shake against him in shared merriment, then whisper, “He said to bathe the other, if I recall correctly,” in Lestrade’s ear, right before he caught the lobe between his teeth and tugged, all gentle threat and cool promise.

Lestrade turned to help Sherlock disrobe. It took a little longer, the way his clothes were fitted to his body, the vain peacock. And because Lestrade enjoyed getting his hands on him.

“You’re staring,” Sherlock whispered. “I don’t know why. You’ve seen me disrobed before.”

“’Course, but…” He couldn’t put it into words, not any of this place, only now, them naked there, in this sort of church-like place, albeit a Pagan house, with Sherlock’s lean, pale body made moonglow by the crystals, and with that steam rising gently, and the earthy scents of the water, it felt…primal, was that the word? Like there were no words, not street cant, not tenpenny lawyer ones, just raw feeling. “I love you,” he breathed, pulling Sherlock close and holding him tight.

“I love you,” was whispered in return, as pure and simple as that.

“I’m in love with you as well,” Lestrade added, moving back a little to regard his lamb.

“I know, Greg.” And that was just so…Sherlock, so bloody Viscount Holmes, all Lestrade could do was chuckle. He was still laughing when he grabbed Sherlock into a long, deep kiss to seal their vows, and it made Sherlock giggle against his lips in return. Sherlock nudged him, and Lestrade backed up a few paces so their feet were on the first of the graduated ledges cut into the rock, for the water to lap at them. Despite the gentle tickling of the silken water, Sherlock’s face bore a solemn cast.

“What. You can tell me, pet,” Lestrade encouraged, stroked down Sherlock’s slim back. Seemed to be the night, or the place, for heart-speak.

“I’ve never had it before, this. Loving someone and being loved in return.”

Lestrade didn’t bother saying him neither. Just whispered, “Dearest,” and pressed his lips to Sherlock’s. That was enough for him to understand, if he didn’t anyway.


	4. Chapter Four

He made a grab for Sherlock – Sherlock was slipping away! Oh, the little eel was sliding himself down into the water. Sliding all the way down Lestrade’s already aroused body and between his legs and slinking beneath the surface to propel himself away. Bereft and chilled by the loss, Lestrade span to watch and listen. The changed sound of Sherlock’s progress indicated deeper water. Made sense – the bath would probably start shallow and get deeper. Common sense…but not common knowledge. Privileged knowledge. The cavern grew a little smaller and the air thinner as he waded the few strides over to Sherlock.

“You’ve been here before.”

“As a lad. We scampered all over the place.”

“When were you last here.”

Sherlock shook his hair out of his eyes to regard him. “Not since I was a boy. Why?”

“I’m wondering, well, I wondered earlier. I know you’re not, that you wouldn’t…” Christ in the clouds, he was making as much of a pig’s ear of it as John had faced with the duke. “I want to know about you and Musgrave,” he finally said. “Your relationship. I know there is one.” When Sherlock merely looked at him, Lestrade added, “You’re friends.” The slight rise in his voice pointed out how rare that was.

“Yes. Well, he’s not unintelligent. Not unamusing. Not totally predictable.”

Was he as oblivious as he seemed? Or concealing – “And were you ever anything more?” Hell’s bells and heaven’s whistles, it was like pulling teeth. “Anything more intimate?”

“Oh. Hardly.” Sherlock slapped a hand on the water to make a noise. “When we were children we were too young. And when we were at Oxford we were too drunk. Or drugged. Then we seemed to follow different paths. Never saw –”

“Hardly?” Lestrade pinched at the word. And the tone it was delivered in. He couldn’t –

“I assume you’re referring to penetration. Or does oral count? And do you then mean giving or receiving?”

The splash that followed was Sherlock turning over like a fish to dive into the water again. The little sod! He might have been taught to swim in some fancy aquarium or pool but Lestrade had learnt in the real thing, the sea. This enabled him to duck-dive with barely a ripple into the mineral depths and surge up behind Sherlock, surprising him. Sherlock lunged for the steps up from the deep end, but Lestrade was on him, over him, as he crowded him.

“You shaver,” was drawn from Lestrade. “Thinking to make a noddy of me, were you?”

The look on Sherlock’s face as he peeked over his shoulder told Lestrade all he needed; told him all Sherlock needed. The step was wide, a big ledge, big enough for him to push Sherlock to his knees on, making his hands grip the edge of the bath and his beautiful arse stick out pertly, barely free of the water lapping at it, lapping at them both in little wavelets their motions had caused. And the position meant Lestrade could see Sherlock’s face, see him react to Lestrade pulling back his hand to administer a smack to one proud, round sphere of Sherlock’s arse.

“Ohhhh!” The same noise, the same identical reaction was drawn from both of them, in the wake of Lestrade’s act. Because they’d both learnt that spanking a wet buttock was completely different to slapping a dry one. Not just the sound, a fleshier, heartier caalaaaap, one that was magnified by the echo chamber of the cave. No; it felt different too to Lestrade, both the silken drag of his hand through the water during and the way his hand cleaved to Sherlock’s cold-hot wet skin, on arrival. And the sensations were different, harder, heartier, heavier. The impact stung and tingled, and the quick-warm of the ripening cheek heated his hand. He couldn’t bear to remove it, but had to: he wanted to see. And even in the dim light he could see the colouration was different, faster; that spanking Sherlock’s wet cheek had given it an immediate bright glow. He feasted his eyes on the scorching imprint, no mere ghost of his hand but burning proof of his connection with his sweetheart.

Sherlock’s eyes were wide in wonder, the same shape as his mouth hung open in. If he hadn’t been so affected himself, Lestrade would’ve wanted to laugh. “I told you to watch your filthy mouth earlier,” he husked. “So I think your antics have earned you six of the best, don’t you? On each side,” he added in a hoarse whisper, watching Sherlock’s eyes shutter closed and his small white teeth bite down on his bottom lip in arousal.

He’d wondered if repetition would dull the feel, or the sound, or the sight, but it didn’t. Each hard smack, each one impacting so well, so prettily on Sherlock’s waiting, quivering cheek, was as pleasing as the first, as warming as the first…as arousing as the first. He tried to lay his hand on the same spot each time, but it proved impossible, and when the six strokes were given, pausing to study the area showed Lestrade a more-than-five-fingered mark, rarer and stranger than any emblem. Never see that on an escutcheon or coat of arms. He knew Sherlock loved bearing his mark, just as Lestrade loved boasting Sherlock’s, the bites he gave to Lestrade’s neck and shoulders when he was in his lap, and Lestrade seated himself deep.

Switching hands, he stopped to run a finger down Sherlock’s crease, using his thighs to widen Sherlock’s stance and open him a little. He stroked Sherlock low down, cupping his balls and finding them as tight and drawn up as his own. He was almost spending – he’d have to make this quick. Sherlock opened his eyes at the delay, and the look in his eyes was faraway, drifting, in that dream-state this put him in. Lestrade altered his position to land these blows on the crease where Sherlock’s leg became his backside. He wanted these to last, wanted Sherlock to feel them after. Seeing Sherlock still reacting to his spankings the day after excited Lestrade anew, often sparking off a new game. Now he paused for Sherlock to count the strokes after him, his way of keeping Sherlock in the here and now, enjoying the quaver in the normally quick-fire voice as much as he enjoyed the quivers he provoked in that taut flesh.

“Six,” Lestrade finally said.

“Six,” Sherlock repeated, his voice a soft catch of sound, then a sigh.

Lestrade watched him come back to himself. To Earth, he might have said, if he’d been the poetic sort. What was it Sherlock had called John when Mrs H had rushed upstairs with John’s first weekly publication, with its opening lines of verse… Oh, yes, a poetaster. It’d taken Lestrade – and John – a while to understand that…wasn’t the same thing as a poet. But Sherlock, spread out and bent over like that, was a poem in his own right. A canvas. A song. An…everything.

His be-all and end-all moved, releasing his arms-outstretched hold on the bath’s rim to fold them and pillow his head on them. The movement created larger eddies to bathe them, soft and silky. Perhaps the contrast between that slippery sating caress and Lestrade’s rougher, ruder one provoked the long moan issuing from Sherlock, but whatever, it was heart-warming. Lestrade pressed against him, his cockstand ready. He didn’t catch Sherlock’s soft request at first.

“Ready me.” It took a sly wriggle of those gorgeous buttocks to help him understand. “Finger me first.”

“Shall I?” Lestrade said with a half grin, half grimace. He didn’t know if he’d be able, he was that near to spending, and the sight of that pretty round arse, glowing red and lapped by the water was almost undoing him. Yet he knew how Sherlock liked the preparations, liked Lestrade getting him ready. “What… Ah.” Sherlock had jerked his head towards the circle of clay lamps. Clay, oil-burning lamps, one of which was near enough to make a long arm for and hook nearer. It hadn’t been alight long and wasn’t that hot. The oil, some sort of distilled plant oil, looked and smelled new and fresh when he dipped his fingers in and brought them to his nose.

Sherlock startled when Lestrade trickled a line of oil down his crease and moaned again when this was smeared over his hole. He clenched, making it tricky to work the unguent into his puckered skin, but Lestrade persevered, getting him to relax and soften for him, and received a long moan for his troubles when he slid the tip of a finger inside. He knew how much Sherlock enjoyed that teasing touch, one which stimulated all the nerve endings inside the entrance, until he couldn’t or wouldn’t take any more, and pushed back into the touch. He stood it for longer tonight, Lestrade thought, being careful not to lean his body against Sherlock’s glowing cheeks. Yet.

He pressed deeper, then added another finger to the first, loosening the muscles. He could easily imagine how it felt, the stretch but no longer the burn – they were both accustomed to it. Now it was Lestrade who could take no more teasing. He withdrew his hand and positioned himself behind and below Sherlock, his feet on the floor of the bath, giving himself two long strokes before easing into him, his hands clutching Sherlock’s slim hips for better traction and a long sigh of satisfaction forcing its way from his lungs. This was counterpointed by Sherlock’s low moan as Lestrade thighs pressed against Sherlock’s buttocks and his hair prickled the sensitive skin around Sherlock’s hole.

Listening to the sounds Sherlock gave out and reading the small, involuntary movements of his body, Lestrade pulled out, as slow as he could, trying to angle himself to hit the spot that turned Sherlock into a weak, incoherent shiver. Their familiarity meant he could surge back in, hard and strong. There’d never been a need between them to fight for every inch, not even at first. But what was unfamiliar now was the feeling of being half supported, half challenged by the water. The water also made the sounds of their bodies slapping together different, the beat of the waves they created adding new, different sounds to their coupling. He wasn’t sure if he liked the weight and surface of the water dragging at his balls as he pulled back and pushed forwards, and the way it changed the momentum and speed. His cock bobbed and his lower hair waved in the water, and it was strange seeing Sherlock’s balls almost floating like that.

Sherlock’s half cry was the first indicator that Lestrade was hitting the right spot. His whole body tensed beneath Lestrade’s, then tightened around him, that squeeze that signalled the beginning of his end, and the pressure and heat was too much for Lestrade. As much as he wanted to attend to Sherlock, his own needs and wants slammed into him so hard and powerfully, shaking him from the base of his spine to the top of his head. He was little more than their creature, forced into the final deep thrusts that were all it took to have him spending, drained and clinging to Sherlock’s body.

Sherlock spoke, said or uttered something, and Lestrade understood. “Sorry.” He pressed a kiss into Sherlock’s shoulder. “You know I’d not leave you wanting, love,” he managed, pulling free of the still-needy clutch Sherlock’s body had on him, his softening prick making his withdrawal easier. His exit freed the hot streams of his release and he reached blindly over Sherlock to the bank, his fingers closing on a towel. Mindful of not messing up the bath – more than they had – he dabbed at them both, cleaning up. Throwing the cloth to land where it would, he reached around, his hand joining Sherlock’s on Sherlock’s   
cock to squeeze and pull. His other hand he used to enter Sherlock’s passage again, pushing hard and high, making him frantic in an instant with the expertise that came of knowledge. In less than a minute Sherlock was shaking and shouting and pulsing and releasing. For him. For them. Lestrade worked to prolong the pleasure and the agony until Sherlock could barely cry out, and couldn’t keep his body upright.

With a whispered, “Easy now,” Lestrade sank down onto the ledge, turning Sherlock’s limp, drained body over onto his lap, to lie facedown. This was a relief, after the fast fury of their coupling, to sit back against the side of the pool, enjoying the mild back-and-forth play of the warm water on their bodies, and feel the give and spring of Sherlock’s cheeks under his hand as he brought his hand down on them in gentle taps. His rhythm was idle, almost negligent, but he watched Sherlock’s face, turned sideways as it was on the water, and saw him react to each one. He wasn’t sure how long they stayed liked that, Sherlock resting on his spread-wide thighs, Lestrade bringing him pleasure and comfort in that warm, unearthly, moonlit cavern, but eventually Sherlock stirred and shifted to sit in his lap, his head tucked into Lestrade’s neck, his arms around Lestrade, as Lestrade’s were firm and sure around him. They dropped again to the step below, making the water cover them fully, and soon they were lying full-length in the depths, still entwined.

“Beautiful.” Lestrade let his tone convey his meaning before saying, “It’s beautiful here. All of it.” He lifted his gaze to the grotto, to the walls surrounding the pool and the statues circling the walls. They looked friendlier, now he looked more closely at them, and some, especially the larger one of a mother and child, were even pretty. “It’s lovely being here with someone like you. Well, you,” he added, honesty prompting him. “There’s no one like you.”

“I’ve always wanted to be somewhere like here with someone like you,” Sherlock replied, lifting his dripping-hair head. “Well, you,” he continued, in a decent enough imitation of Lestrade’s still West Country accent that its original laughed and ducked them both. It was early morning when they left, tired out, to stagger back, arms around the other’s waist, to the courtyard. Take a horse, next time we go over these grounds, Lestrade thought, feeling every step across the park and the garden. He couldn’t complain though: it was pretty enough. The thought passed through his head that this was nothing but leather and prunella, that Musgrave had arranged the whole shooting match, for some reason – company? amusement? annoy his mother? please Sherlock? – but if he had, Lestrade was a beneficiary too. Nice belated Christmas gift, or early New Year present.

“Hungry?” Sherlock asked, leading him behind the walls into the kitchen garden. “You were just muttering something about prunes? Can’t promise those but…”

“These don’t look like fruit.” Lestrade cast an eye over the small plants and rubbed a leaf between his fingers. Rue. “This is the witches’ garden.” He bent closer, grateful to see basil and chanting the rhyme he’d heard from his mam and gran as a kid, “Where basil grows, no evil goes, where basil is, no evil lives!”

“It’s just the herb garden, you know.” Nevertheless Sherlock looked fascinated at the lore and the scene from Lestrade’s youth enacted. Lestrade could see the little devil storing it up to use. Sherlock led him to the potager garden beyond, and Lestrade, who was hungry, picked winter queenings and permains from the overhanging apple trees and laughed at Sherlock’s pocketfuls of peas snaffled from a cloche.

“What? I like peas. Everyone knows I do,” Sherlock asserted, popping and podding one as they walked.

“Quiet now. Don’t go waking people,” Lestrade cautioned at their dwelling. Someone, probably their host, had left a glimstick alight in the cottage hall, and lifting it, his face otherworldly in its light, Sherlock tsked as he regarded the downstairs room. “The bachelors sat up late over brandy,” he observed, hefting the bottle to check its level. Finding it to his satisfaction, he tucked it under one arm and set the lamp down to run a thumbnail down his next peapod.

“I’m here too!” Lestrade exclaimed, to make Sherlock tip some sweet, tender peas into his mouth. “And John was researching and writing.” He pointed to the books and sheaves of paper. Curious, he reached for the topmost book to see its title. “A History of Hastilude,” he read.

“Lance games,” Sherlock explained. “Martial games, such as jousting, such as the tournament John’s organising for tomorrow.”

“For later,” Lestrade corrected, cocking his head to head the clock tower chime. It was a sweet, yet full ring. “Let’s hope he’s a quick reader, hey.” He smirked. “And here’s Musgrave saying he was better at Latin than you. Cheek of it.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock answered, rubbing a hand down his recently attended to cheeks, making Lestrade chuckle and dislodge the pile of books and papers as he replaced the top tome.

“Shush! Don’t wake the others!” Sherlock cried, his voice unmodulated, and between that, and Lestrade’s chuckles, then curses as most of his apples fell and bumped behind him back down the stairs, they made it to their room for their impromptu but most welcome supper in bed.

 

And the theme of cold was still present when Lestrade woke later – cold pig this time. “Oh kiss my round mouth. And my nutmegs,” he groaned, snatching blindly for the bedclothes pulled from him. “I’ve just closed my eyes, you Mad Tom.” The memory that the second part of cold pig was the perpetrator, having removed the bedclothes, throwing cold water on the sluggard in punishment for his sloth had him sitting up, arms outstretched for any thatch-gallows bearing a water jug.

“Later, perhaps.”

Sherlock. Of course. Lestrade opened one eye.

“When I’m in a better humour. The magistrate won’t let me exhume Brunton’s body. And he’s still abed. He’s even more of a Sir Toby Slugabed than you.”

Lestrade groaned again, wordlessly this time. “Isn’t it very early? Too early for business?” came his query.

“Oh.” Sherlock didn’t sleep much and scoffed at those who did. “Well, it’s your fault!” he continued, rising from his crouch over Lestrade to pace the room.

“Of course it is.” Lestrade groped for the brandy bottle and took a pipe-opening swig. Better. “Why this time, love?”

“Always making me do everything properly! Official-like. Proper channels.”

Lestrade disregarded the imitation to ponder what…Sherlock would have done if left to his own devices. An image of a shovel and Sherlock, coat and waistcoat cast aside to dig, came to his mind’s eye. He shuddered.

“And he was in a complete twist. Absolutely blue with temper,” Sherlock complained.

“Did you…beard him in his chamber, by any chance?”

“Oh, not that.” Sherlock flapped a dismissive hand. “Because his watering-pot of a daughter had been weeping over him all night. And that’s your fault!” he cried at Aesc, who appeared blinking in the doorway, awakened by the noise. “One you can remedy right now!”

“Your fault,” echoed Lestrade, holding out the bottle in commiseration to his host, who by his pale face had had too much last night. “What’s he done.”

“Playing the Jack with little Miss Turner’s heart. Or was it jackstones?”

“Am I to understand you’ve been to Sir Peter’s at cockcrow for some reason?” Aesc enquired, leaning folded-armed on the door frame. “And he won’t grant your request as he’s on the outs with you”

“With you!”

“Me…because…”

“You’re jilting his daughter, playing her for a fool over –”

“Me?” came a female voice, pitched low and sultry. It was followed by its owner, Irene, dressed like a fashion plate in Pomona green, probably to show off the huge emerald bracelet she span around a wrist. She brushed against Aesc as she strutted through the doorway to sit on the bed. “Why, I merely asked her to compare notes with me about my bridegroom, and when she had none, felt so sorry for her so very kindly asked her to help me organise the wedding, her being on hand and knowing everyone so well!”

“Madam!” came in a squeak from their host, her bridegroom, tightening his robe around himself in a hurry. “In here? A woman? I’ve never –”

“So I’m your first, dear. That’s sweet,” she purred, curling up like a cat against the headboard. A sharp glance from Sherlock had Lestrade wrapping the sheet around himself as he moved over as far as he could. “Oh. The whole tribe,” she commented as a sleepy-looking John appeared. “Well now, my motley crew. Perhaps now you’re all here, you can tell me the truth about why we’re all here?” she demanded, her eyes flashing fury. “Haven’t you learnt yet how stupid you are to keep things from me, and how much you need me? Especially if it concerns my darling betrothed.”

The glare she turned on her intended was one of pure wickedness. He swallowed.

“Madam, I’m –”

“Madam I’m Adam!” she retorted, jumping up. “You’re going to need my help – you always do – and particularly now with little puss Turner and her gruff of a father. I can twine him around my little finger in a heartbeat and you know it.”

Lestrade shrugged and Sherlock inclined his head. John nodded. Aesc was still staring, open-mouthed. Irene snapped her fingers to break the silence. “So I suggest we have a proper meeting downstairs over the hot chocolate and rolls I’ve very kindly brought you and you tell…me…everything.”

She must have some occult powers, Lestrade reflected a few minutes later, struggling into his clothes as they all trooped downstairs in her wake.

“I was going to tell you anyway.” Sherlock was working up to a snit. “Because whatever else, you’re not an entirely stupid word-pecker. Aesc, would you?”

The Woman was silent as she listened, after repeating the verse to make sure she had it.

‘“The first and fiercest secret of a sovereign, watched over by the margrave knights in their tower pledged never to tell. Where is it? Up hill and down dale, over sea and under stone. Whose is it? Yours. Ours. But leave it gilded in silence, seek it not, speak it not.” Well, you’ve spoken it now! And…what sort of…treasure are we thinking it is? You’ve no idea? Oh. Well, I want in on it. Agreed? I mean, it’ll be mine anyway, won’t it, once we’re wed, beloved.”

“But…” Aesc tried.

“Butt is for goats!” snapped La Adler, leaping to her feet. Aesc stood too, of course, flinching as she crossed to him, then gave a weak smile as she took his cup to refill for him. She patted his chair for him to sit as she perched on the arm. Glancing up into the mirror, she experimented with his arm around her, then her chin on his shoulder. She finished by patting him kindly on the head as she straightened. If they did marry, Lestrade reflected, the poor cove would need a mirror in each room for her, and all the brandy he could imbibe.

After another moment’s silence, Irene continued, “Do you think the tower is the clock tower or the folly tower? More likely the latter, no, if that’s a belvedere?” Lestrade thought again how anyone who was blinded by her looks and disregarded her shrewdness did so at their peril.

“Don’t you think both will have been searched many times over the centuries?” Sherlock scorned.

“But not by you,” she flashed back. “What? Why those looks? Do you think me so mean-spirited I can’t place credit where it’s due? Or so ham-headed I can’t recognise uncommon cleverness when I meet it? Now. Do you think this Rachel woman will return to search the tower? I presume you have someone watching it?”

Sherlock scowled and left the room. He could be heard whistling and shouting through the archway.

“The men will all be occupied at the quintain,” Irene continued, breaking off as John paled and dashed from the room, bumping into Sherlock returning. She spared a moment for a headshake. “What say I keep the women out of your way by getting them all to costume themselves as medieval damsels – I came across a dressing-up room when I explored yesterday – and then by acting as wenches at the luncheon pic-nic and afternoon musical interlude?”

“What’s for lunch?” queried Piers, sticking his untidy head in at the window.

“There’s both a Dutch oven and a masonry oven at the clearing, I was given to understand when I took inventory,” Irene replied. “So soup and roasted meat? Will that serve, la?”

“Fine.” His head vanished, presumably in search of breakfast.

“Pleased you think so!” Irene stood, making Aesc shoot up too. “So I’ll give the servants their orders for the day. With your permission of course, milord?” And the saucy ladybird actually dropped a curtsey. Aesc sputtered and floundered.

“There’s still actually a Lady Musgrave?” Sherlock pointed out.

“Who’ll be so happy her newfound daughter is able to organise the estate and run a house party so very beautifully, with she longing to retire to her literary works.” Irene raised an eyebrow.

“You’re…quite the woman,” gasped Aesc.

“This is nothing to managing the Theatre Royal,” she said. “What, you don’t think that useless committee does exactly what I tell them?”

“And they’re very privileged to do so.” Aesc rallied a little, bowing and managing a small smile.

“Hmm.” She regarded the small group with a look of pity. “Well, if I have any further thoughts on the tringum-trangum, I’ll send one of my maids to find you. And, your lordship, come to me before the target-joust to claim my favour to wear.” She swept from the room, the little frigot-well-rigged, and with an apologetic look at his guests, her betrothed followed.

Sherlock laughed. “Aesc should watch out. If he’s not coming up to snuff, I fancy she’ll stage some theatrical as ‘entertainment’ with them two playing the parts of a betrothed pair, and with the parson…a real bib-and-bible-wearer.”

Lestrade had no doubt The Woman would be capable of it, but fancied she was playing a longer game. A lady was one thing but a duchess…quite another.

“I’d miss her, I think, if she left London and the stage,” Sherlock said, head on one side as he contemplated.

“Really?” Lestrade was pleased at his love’s words. Sherlock didn’t make many…friends.

“Yes. She’s very useful, placed as she in the heart of the Ton and the world of the theatre.” Lestrade rolled his eyes.

“If I were jousting,” he said, “would you give me your favour to wear?”

“Oh, so I’m the girl?” was hurled at him as Lestrade dodged the throw pillow Sherlock…threw.

“Nah. You’re the princess. My princess,” he replied, only just catching the book Sherlock flung at him in retaliation for that. “Because of the tower, sweetling,” he tried to claim, opening his eyes wide in innocence. “Nothing else.”

“To blue blazes with the tower. The solution’s at the chapel, where the body was. I’m sure of it.”

“Yes, I agree.” Lestrade stood and stretched. “But only part of it. We need the other parts too. Starting a little closer to home.” Oh, he was petty, but he relished the confusion clouding Sherlock’s blue-green-gold eyes as his brain worked furiously. “The letter on the clock tower. I’d wager there’s one on the house, probably on the dome thing that, how did Musgrave say it, pays a compliment to the tower. That was it, wasn’t it?”   
  
“More or less,” Sherlock agreed, leading Lestrade outside. “The E, you mean? I see. But that’s probably just for Elizabeth. Queen Eliz –”

“Yes; I know. But in that case, where’s the R? For Regina? Bit familiar to call her by her Christian name, I’m thinking. Oh. Wait up.” But Sherlock was gone, snatching up John’s forgotten scribbling pad and pencil in his haste. Lestrade sighed and followed. As ever.

“Yes; quite clearly an E.” Sherlock examined the clock tower. Lestrade yanked him out of the way of a wayward horse careening through the archway and grabbed its halter. He ran his hand down the halter to the tie ring under the animal’s face, to pull up the lead rope attached to it and trailing on the floor. Passing it to the panting stable hand rushing up, he was glad he wasn’t in the tourney. The man nodded his thanks and tugged at his flat cap, moving to the horse’s right to lead it away. Sherlock risked getting kicked by the horse as he dashed close behind it to see the back of the small tower, and its sides.

“No others,” he proclaimed, turning, and shading his eyes to stare at the house. “We need to get to the cupola.”

“Could be on a chimney or a turret, or even one the chimneys here in this courtyard bit,” Lestrade countered.

“No. Don’t think it would be. And we have to be careful. Remember others are after the same goal and –”

“Sure we can’t be overheard here?”

“It’s a vast deal quieter than inside!”

The low male voices reached them, and Lestrade and Sherlock drew smartly back into the shadow of the archway as if by arrangement, staring at the two men huddling in the doorway. They were guests, Lestrade thought, recalling them. They seemed different to the local neighbourhood old toasts and green heads the Musgraves probably invited out of habit or duty. No; these were more little-men-of-the-town, with that air of being mutton-fed but wanting beef.

“You’re sure this is the best way. That he won’t suspect?” asked the first man, highly strung, looking down his long, not-quite-straight nose at the second.

“Do it just as I laid out.” This man was shorter, with long side-whiskers a little lighter in shade than his teased-forward curls. “We both lay on hard, pressing him, with you feigning at the point we agreed, as I explained. Then when it comes to the finale, I’ll let him think he’s won until the moment comes. Oh don’t worry. I’ll sham and counterfeit for all I’m worth as long as I have to. Just consider the long-term rewards. They should be substantial.”

“If you’re sure.” The first man examined his companion’s face as the latter nodded. “Well, let’s lay on then. It should be over with by afternoon. Thank the Lord.” The two men returned inside.

“Is that them? They’re trying to solve the puzzle??” whispered Lestrade.

“Don’t know. Yet. Come on! Don’t lose them!” Sherlock followed in the men’s footsteps.

“Wait! We should see what’s afoot!” hissed Lestrade, following nevertheless, after charging Wiggins to watch the roof, best he could, and report any climbers. And maybe if they had taken the time to spy out the game indoors, they wouldn’t have got swept through the entrance room into the ante-room on its right, then into a large breakfast parlour containing the majority of the servants, old and new, most of the house guests, one of whom was standing on a chair, and which was –

“Hellish!” Sherlock exclaimed as the declaimer finished, to spatterings of applause from those not helping themselves from the platoon of silver dishes on the sideboard or drinking deep to rekindle the mood of the night before.

“They were rather weak,” Lady Musgrave agreed, wagging a finger at the sorry-looking versifier. “I did say the epigrams should be in Greek, as the originals would have been. Perhaps you can translate them while your lady wife entrances us once again on the harp.”

As the lady, large, fussily dressed, who didn’t seem to be entrancing anyone, started up, making people shout louder to be heard over her stringy tinkling, her wet-feathered bantam chick of a husband was heard to lament that it had taken him most of the night to produce a series of couplets on the winners and losers of last night’s cards as it was, so if anyone expected him to turn the sweat of his brow into Greek at the drop of a hat, they were –

“I don’t suppose it calls for the expending of very much wit to scribble, ‘Poor Sir Toby, Down a Guinea, He never learns, The poor nick-ninny,’” called Sherlock, pushing his way through the throng.

“That’s quite clever!” Lestrade praised, thinking that once again, he couldn’t fathom the ways of the gently born. You passed the evening engaged with one activity, spent the night writing about it, then occupied the next morning reading what you’d written about what you’d done? Where did it end?

“It ends here,” Sherlock declared in a firm, loud voice, confronting the two men they’d seen earlier, for all they were dancing attendance, or trying to, upon the unmistakeable figure of the august personage the Duke of Wellington. Trying to, as His Grace was applying all his attention to a plate of kedgeree. No wonder – it was Mrs Hudson’s speciality. Lestrade would have known it anywhere, and the sight and smell of it made his stomach rumble. Luckily that rude noise was covered by the sudden loud applause: people had taken Sherlock’s proclamation to mean someone had taken pity on them and the tortured plinking of the harp had come to a premature end. The large lady stood and blinked at her audience, one hand still keeping up a few plunks just in case.

“What the devil –”

“I know what you’re about, man. You won’t succeed, so I suggest you give up now and tell us everything,” demanded Sherlock, skewering Narrow-Nose and Crunch-Curls with an ice-cold stare.

“What say we discuss this next door, yes?” Lestrade interjected, opening his jacket to reveal the brass-tipped staff denoting his official status, if the twosome knew what that meant. “Now, John Dory and St. Pierre,” he added as the men opened and closed their mouths like Peter’s fish


	5. Chapter Five

“If you’ll excuse us, Your Grace?” gasped Long-Nose.

“Yes, another helping,” answered the duke, whom Lestrade was beginning to think deaf when it suited him, handing his empty plate to the man. “Damned fine kedgeree.”

I know! thought Lestrade, mentally lamenting the loss of his favourite breakfast food.

“Leave us,” ordered Sherlock of the footman standing arms-behind-his-back in the withdrawing room next to the breakfast parlour. “Please,” he added, rolling his eyes at Lestrade, before the latter could remonstrate. “So. What gave you the idea to… Oh, for heaven’s sake!” The long-nosed man was weeping, still holding the ducally scraped-clean plate.

“His idea!” he managed between blubs and from behind his oversized handkerchief. Well, of course he’d need a tablecloth-sized one, wouldn’t he, thought Lestrade, conk like that.

“Sherlock,” he said. “I don’t reckon these two were wanting –”

“To curry favour with His Grace by putting up a good fight then losing in the final of the joust!” burst out Nosey junior while his teased-haired leader tried to shush him. “And going down with an injury so the duke feels responsible and –”

“Gives you some preferment?” Sherlock scoffed. “A sweet sinecure in Whitehall? Idiots. He’s more likely to tally you as damage and deadweight and so end it for you, thinking he’s on the battlefield.”

At this the man squealed and fainted. They left his companion slapping him hard to bring him round.

“Well. That’s that. And if His Grace isn’t having seconds, maybe there’ll be enough…” Lestrade hoped. There wasn’t. Tutting at Lestrade’s woebegone expression, Sherlock led him down the back stairs into the cavernous kitchen, where they were met halfway by Mrs Hudson with a plate she’d set aside for him.

“Never underestimate the housekeeper, dear,” she cautioned,

“I wouldn’t,” replied Lestrade fervently, submitting happily to being seated with fork in hand in the housekeeper’s panty, a small room to one side of the kitchen, before Mrs H bustled off again. She shushed Sherlock’s attempts to extract any news or information from her: she had Lady Musgrave junior’s luncheon requests to prepare. A scowling Sherlock was back with Lestrade within a minute.

It only struck him then that the junior lady in question must be…Irene. The Woman was one of the quickest workers he knew. A bit like Mrs Hudson, or Sally, he thought. Maybe it was true what they said, that the nineteenth century would be the time of women. And rather Musgrave than me, he reasoned, trying to ignore Sherlock’s literally dancing on the spot with impatience. Lestrade looked beyond the small salon to the kitchen itself, checking, and pulled Sherlock down to the arm of his chair. It reminded him of Irene’s pose with Musgrave earlier, and he chuckled.

“Lestrade! We’ve a case to solve, a rival to beat, treasure to find, and you’re –  _ Ummmph! _ ”

Genius his sweetheart might be, he never learnt when to keep his mouth shut, Lestrade reflected, waiting patiently for Sherlock to finish chewing the forced forkful of fish and rice. As Sherlock’s eyes watered – he tended to bolt his food – Lestrade held the teacup to those beautiful lips for him to sip from. As Sherlock started to splutter about  _ no time _ ,  _ paramount importance _ and –  _ Ummmppff! _ Lestrade slipped him another heap of the delicious food, eyeing him sternly. That was usually about the time Sherlock gave in and submitted to being fed. Lapped it up, more like, Lestrade reckoned. It was either that tactic or that of filling his own plate brimful for Sir Pickety-Which to pluck from. Either suited him. Them.

“Can’t have the good Mrs Hudson calling me Sir Bolt-a-Lot, now can I?” he asked of his sweetling. “And a minute here or there won’t make a blind spit of difference, not against your superior wits. We’ll give that lot time to clatter on out and go up into the boughs.”

“I’m surprised you’re not insisting on a pic-nic basket,” Sherlock fumed, nonetheless opening up his heart-shaped lips as requested for a particularly choice morsel of smoked fish.

“What, of gammon and spinach?” Lestrade muttered. He still wasn’t sure he was convinced…

Sherlock regarded him. “I know you think it’s all a Banbury tale. What, that Howells offed her husband and set off for pastures new, using the Riddle, or Curse, or Ritual or whatever it is as a cover? I’d perhaps agree, if it weren’t for the footprints of whoever met her at the copse heading back towards the house. There’d be no explaining that, with your hypothesis. The man would have borne her away with him.”

“Could have been she got help from someone here. Got someone to bring her a horse, then that man went back to his work?” Lestrade suggested. “But why not just go and take a horse, or horse and carriage herself, then.”

“And be prosecuted for theft?”

“I doubt her ladyship’s the sort to notice a horse missing,” Lestrade countered. “Probably wouldn’t notice if the stables went missing!” Which made him think of something. “Is anything else gone? Did the woman steal anything, I mean?”

“Seems not.” Of course Sherlock would have checked. “Mrs Hudson and Irene are making sure the inventory’s in order and Molly’s enquiries amongst the servants and search of Howells’s room have revealed nothing has gone.”

Lestrade regarded his companion. “Just how early did you get up?” He half expected the answer before it came and was able to say along with Sherlock: “I haven’t yet retired.”

“Right. Well, let’s away to the heights, then.” Lestrade was resigned to a battlement walk, a rooftop search.

“Not necessary. I’ve a few helpers at work. Organised it just now whilst you were, how is it, oh yes, going at that plate like a man with no arms...” Sherlock led a puzzled Lestrade back out to the courtyard and Lestrade leaned back to look up.

“ _ Chimney sweeps? _ What... Oh. You’ve got your lads done up as a whole team of climbing boys. Of course you have.”

“Indeed.” Sherlock leaned against him to watch. “And most artfully too.” They did look the part, from what Lestrade could glimpse, apart from the malarky going on: large flat brushes, caps pulled down over their eyes, cloths around their grimey lower faces, thin clothing. “Thank you, erm...”

“Molly,” Lestrade supplied for Sherlock, smiling at the hardworking maid who was even now handing the last boy a brush and sending him skywards. But there was no need. A triumphant cry of, “Got it!” rang down from the heights and a dirty face peered down, pointing behind him. “On the dome!” he yelled.

“Shush!” yelled back Sherlock, even more loudly. “Everybody check and confirm and copy.”

There was a scramble and a shuffle and a silence for a minute before the small group made its way down, Lestrade’s heart in his mouth as they pushed and shoved and swung and leaped up high. But there was no doubt. While the urchins might not be great artists or writers or draughtsmen, all their pieces of paper bore the same pencilled shape: the letter  _ R _ , copied or traced from its original on the cupola.

“ _ R _ and  _ E _ ... You know, those are the first and last letters of the word riddle!” Lestrade exclaimed. “And I’m thinking this case started with a goose – what if this is a wild goose chase, eh?” A vision of Musgrave ancestors going back over the centuries, their clothing zany and mirth-making, trotting over the estate to carve another letter assailed him. He fancied he could hear the giggles of each generation, whipping on the breeze.

“No.  _ E R _ , Elizabeth Regina,” Sherlock said. “Quite logical, really, on the tallest structures. A tribute to the glory of her might, her stature.”

“’Ere, this is on the stables an’ all,” said one of the Irregulars, tapping the paper he’d handed over. “Just this. Not that.” He pointed to the clock tower and its  _ E _ . “Stables ain’t so high and mighty. Least, not when you has to bunk down in their loft.” He sniffed and wiped the back of his hand across his nose.

“ _ Stables? _ ” Sherlock started to say but stopped at the quick clatter of hooves behind him. Again Lestrade grabbed him from the path of a horse. This one had a rider – a very ducal rider who could stop his chestnut horse on a blade of grass.

“Hail!” he shouted, his voice ringing around the too-small courtyard as it might a parade ground or battlefield. “Why were there so many snowballs up on the roof?”

He was reputed to be into every little detail of running or managing…everything. Had been calling out suggestions to Lady Musgrave last night. The erstwhile chimney lads all looked at the ground. Lestrade looked at Sherlock and Sherlock looked at the duke, his mind running quickly.

“More efficient, Your Grace,” he said. “Using a greater number ensures a successful result in shorter time.”

“Using a great deal of men at once for the same ends…” The duke rubbed his chin. “Give me enough of it and I am sure,” he murmured, his gaze faraway. Then he snapped back. “My thanks, sir. Carry on!” And with a wave of his cocked hat, he span the horse on a snowflake and clipped away.

“Don’t know, don’t care.” Sherlock preempted Lestrade’s questions about the great man’s meaning or intent. Lestrade pulled Molly up from the low curtsey she’d sunk into and frozen once there while Sherlock sent his helpers to their posts. “If the masses have clattered off, let’s to the stables.”

They did, to discover an  _ R _ high on the pediment, the triangular gable topping off the massive projecting-out pillar that was the entrance, the stables of course being no mere barn, but some turretless dolls’-house version of the house, a massive H-shape.

“ _ E R R _ ?”

“Or  _ E R _ , then another  _ R _ ,” Sherlock corrected him.

“But not another  _ E _ . On the chapel in the grounds. I think it was an  _ L _ .” Lestrade pointed yonder.

“I doubt it.” Sherlock turned to go, and Lestrade clutched at him. “I’m going to confirm!” Sherlock protested.

“And I’m going with you. Only not on foot. Especially not if we’re going to be jumping all over this estate like hop-frogs in a pond in June.” Lestrade indicated the stables. “There must be at least two horses left. I’m not your cousin. I don’t care if they’re not bang-up prads.”

“Pray don’t.” Sherlock shuddered at Lestrade’s imitation. “One of him is more than enough.”

Within ten minutes they were provided with a rather long-in-the-tooth dun and a grey that kept tossing its long neck and harrumphing down its refined nose. Closing his eyes to any parallels, Lestrade led them off. Much quicker to the church this time.

“It’s a  _ C _ !” Sherlock exclaimed, grabbing at his notebook to jot down the church door letter. “ _ C R _ ? To match  _ E R _ ?” He narrowed his eyes, drawing a line in the air from the stables to this building, assessing heights, angles, prospects, axis.

“A church could be considered as lofty and high and mighty in its own way as a dome or clock tower. But the stables? It doesn’t fit with the honouring theory.” Lestrade shook his head. “Well, maybe the tribute letters are just placed on all the old buildings? Musgrave said the estate was a mixture, didn’t he. Got an  _ E _ and a  _ C _ , so we should find a  _ J _ for James and another  _ R _ , if we go looking.”

Sherlock was muttering to himself, nonsensical words, such as  _ erec _ , and  _ ceer _ as he followed Lestrade in their trot to the prospect tower. It would be a nice thing to glimpse from the house, Lestrade owned, all the way down that long avenue and across the park, and yet it was made to look out from.

“Fair view,” he explained to Sherlock, who looked taken aback at Lestrade’s translating the Italian belvedere. Lestrade wasn’t about to explain the article in last quarter’s _Ladies’ Monthly Museum_ , especially when you consider the magazine’s full title, _The Ladies’ Monthly Museum,_ _Or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction, being an assemblage of whatever can tend to please the Fancy, interest the Mind, or exalt the Character of the British Fair_ and that it carried ‘articles of interest to an educated female.’

Lestrade wasn’t going to tell Sherlock he purchased the publication as a treat for his ma – and read it before sending it to Somerset.

“Focal point and viewing tower,” Sherlock capped, not liking to come second, in anything. He twitched lightly on his ribbons and his well-bred horse broke into a fast trot. Lestrade had to dig his heels in a few times before his more lumbering beast got up any speed. Again, he determinedly didn’t think of anything or anyones...similar.

They didn’t ride straight down that long avenue. Their meander of a journey took them through the parkland and into an ancient wood, across which the sounds of the tournament carried. He was happy not to be involved in the dull thuds of wooden things being hurled at other wooden things, or the duller thuds of bodies becoming unseated. They picked their way along the deer path through the trees to come out at a bend of the river.

Sherlock’s horse shied at some ridges and furrows in the ground, almost unhorsing Sherlock but for the strong grip his thighs had on its flanks. Sherlock glanced across, a twist of a smile saying he knew where Lestrade's thoughts on that matter had led him. “Earthworks,” he commented. “A deserted medieval village. I’d forgotten.”

“River,” quipped Lestrade. “And flood plain.” He urged the horse into a walk, heading into a small copse, Sherlock soon overtaking him to canter along the path to a waist-high drystone wall. “Ah.” Lestrade grinned at the pretty cast-iron gate and saw a small, sly grin on Sherlock’s face. “I know what this is, and all. Do you?”

“Yes.” ’Course he did.

“And you knew it was here.”

There was no need for the reply that this was the reason Sherlock had led them this scenic route rather than the direct one. They dismounted and tied the reins to iron rings driven into the wall. “It’s designed to keep animals out,” Sherlock explained, his voice smooth. He pushed the hinged gate from its position at the near point of the black wrought-iron semicircle it lay flush to, pushed it to the back, the far point, making it lie in a line there. The squeak of the gate wasn’t the rusty protest of iron Lestrade had anticipated. Instead the gate gave out an unexpectedly sweet trill, like a ripple of amusement echoing down the centuries. Strange the fancies people got in countrified surroundings, he supposed, shaking his head to clear it.

Sherlock squeezed into the half-round space he’d made and swung the gate back to its original position in another aural curl of joy, one...stretching into the future this time. The way was clear for Sherlock to walk out of the enclosure, but instead he turned and placed his hands on the gate, holding it closed and making it impossible for Lestrade to enter.

“You little imp. Have to pay for my passage, do I?” Lestrade asked, standing to face Sherlock and placing his hands on the swing gate too, on top of Sherlock’s. “Well, it is a kissing gate, I suppose.” And kissing his love was never any hardship. Especially not now, sliding his arms around Sherlock to pull him as close as the gate allowed, then letting his mouth hang over Sherlock’s before he covered it with his own, to nibble on those precise, precisely beautiful lips and then tongue the flesh he cherished between his teeth. He pulled back a little to lick along the edges of Sherlock’s mouth, tracing the cut of the top lip and the thrust of the bottom. He waited until his possession brought a hitch to Sherlock’s breathing before delving his tongue inside his parted mouth, tasting and exploring the sensations it brought him, the sensations Sherlock brought him.

As always, he found his arms sliding lower down Sherlock’s body to cup his arse cheeks, his hands sure and familiar. Sherlock met him, of course, pushing back into his touch, twining his tongue with Lestrade’s, like a flower slowly blooming to hot, pulsing life. Better than any bud in the rose garden, or any tulip in the Dutch garden, Lestrade just knew, returning the kiss full-fold, treating Sherlock like the rare treasure he was, someone to be prized and guarded against all comers, as aristocratic as they might be. 

He had to breathe, so moved to caress the underside of Sherlock’s chin with his mouth, trailing a scatter of kisses down as much of his neck as he could. He loved Sherlock’s little exhalations, in time with each suck and peck, and wasn’t surprised to feel Sherlock’s mouth and chin rubbing against his temple, or to feel stray kisses pressed into the strands of hair that lay there.  They rested a minute, like that, pressed together, Lestrade’s head lying on Sherlock’s shoulder and Sherlock’s lips in Lestrade’s hair. Like a circle, no matter where it began and ended, started and finished, or never ended. This thought, of circles and swirls and lines, somehow recalled Lestrade to their mission. He gave a final tight squeeze, full of  _ wait  _ and  _ later  _ and  _ then  _ and stood straight.

“Paid enough toll?” he enquired, his voice as husky as Sherlock’s eyes were bright. Sherlock nodded and stepped away, just as Lestrade did, for them to push the swing gate back and make passage.

“Of course, you know the term  _ kissing gate _ is a corruption of Kisting Gate, the place where a coffin or kist, a variant of chest, was put down for the bearers to rest while being carried to the church for the funeral?” Sherlock enquired, straightening Lestrade’s hair for him.

Lestrade groaned. “And do you know how to hot foot it?” he asked in turn. “Because I’m going to hold you down and give that arse of yours a good hard smack for you. Ruining the day like that! One, tw –”

A laughing Sherlock was sprinting clear of the wall and up the hill, the summit of the long avenue, to the tower. Lestrade had supposed it would just be a simple grey rectangle perhaps, and you climbed stairs at the back to a pie-edge bit on top to look out over the park from its roof. But no. This was a huge brick arch with a block on top and a fancy buttress either side. The main colour was the same warm brown as the house, with the edges picked out in earth colour, what Lestrade thought of as proper brick.

He looked around the stillness and breathed in the quiet for a second before returning his focus to the lookout tower. The block on top had two smallish porthole windows near its top, set apart, and just under them an arch-shaped window, with a tower-shaped window flanking it either side, mimicking the arch and tower itself. It would have been clever if it hadn’t given Lestrade goose flesh – it looked like a face with small round eyes and an anguished mouth, and the building a body, the archway division forming two legs, the black roof its hat.

“Has it got a name?” he asked, keeping his voice low. His imagination was fanciful today. Look at him not wanting to wake this strange inhuman body standing sentinel in lonely splendour. He closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to see the building pull one giant leg free of the earth and swing from side to side to lumber down the avenue to the House.

“I was just thinking.” Sherlock turned to him, making him ashamed of his bizarre imagining. “That if we see an  _ E _   here, it might be because of the name. Ebbe’s Tower. Built 1750 something by some ancestor.”

“In his own image,” Lestrade said. After a quick glance up, Sherlock huffed out a chuckle.

“They all got these Northern Countries names, in the family?” Lestrade had never heard of Ebbe as a name. Nor Aesc. Or that Rognold effort.

“Oh, the eldest son is always given a good old English name,” Sherlock replied. He anticipated Lestrade’s question. “Aesc’s brother died as a young child.”

“That’s too bad,” Lestrade said. Craven, he wished he hadn’t heard about a death, however long ago, not right now, now here. He turned away a little and leant forward, spitting into the grass to ward off evil. Sherlock busied himself in forcing the door open.

“You, dubbing the jigger again. One day…” prophesied Lestrade.

“I’ll be locked up?” Sherlock finished, echoing one of their earliest exchanges. As then, he cocked an eyebrow. “What would be the point if I can simply, and demonstrably, extricate myself?”

“Took you long enough though.” Lestrade’s mind was still on their first meeting and Sherlock’s subsequent restraining and incarceration.

“I hadn’t much incentive to leave,” Sherlock mumbled.

“But… Oh.” Lestrade actually blushed. After freeing Sherlock from the restraints, he’d had himself locked in with the arrogant, overbearing…fascinating aristocrat to question him about his suspicious knowledge of the crime and its victims and suspects. The resulting ‘interrogation’ had been a lively and fascinating battle of wits during which Sherlock had learnt as much about him as he’d learnt about his ‘captive’. It had only ended in the small, pale dawn when Lestrade fell asleep and Sherlock, an adept of the black art, or lockpicking, let himself free.  _ Until the next time… _ Lestrade still didn’t know if he’d imagined that small, shy touch of lips to his nape as he lay facedown on a straw pallet, collapsed with exhaustion. He hadn’t imagined the coat thrown over him for warmth. He knew he hadn’t – because he’d gone to return it to its mysterious, omniscient owner and –

“Come along!” Sherlock called down. He was halfway up the spiral staircase, and Lestrade soon joined him at the square room at its top.

“Nice,” he commented on the rustically furnished room with its small library and art materials. The paintings and drawings were all of the view, going back years. By the dates, it seemed guests added to the catalogue, over the summers. He could imagine the estate full of a numerous family and myriad servants and abundant guests and their retinues, rows of children, all bustling and tumbling about the place. Seemed sad to be reduced down to one man, who looked more like he preferred London. He hoped Musgrave did marry, whether The Woman – couldn’t see that, really – or the neighbour girl, and have a big family to fill the place. He examined the case of books for any evidence. No handwritten journals or notes.

“Lend me a hand?” Sherlock, having searched the room to his satisfaction – and frustration – was standing on a chest and hitting upwards at a corner of the glass square that was the ceiling and roof, the conduit for the weak sunlight trickling in. They got it open and Sherlock hoisted himself out to sit on the small black fence enclosing it, followed at a more sedate pace by Lestrade. He caught his breath at the view. The long road down to the house was lovely, the gardens bristling with toy buildings and sparkles of water even in this season, and the parkland and woods, coming into view when you turned, were splendid.

How had that bit of the poem thing gone – ‘watched over by the Margrave knights in the tower’? Well, yes, this would be a good watch-out point, but surely up in the hills would be better? He squinted at the ruins high up and in the distance, stumpy and gappy like a gypsy’s smile.

“Careful!” Lestrade was forced to abandon his musings to make a grab for Sherlock, leaning over the fence to hang down the front of the tower’s roof. He curled his hands into the tight-fitting waistband of Sherlock’s breeches. “What?” He couldn’t understand Sherlock’s exclamation, not until Sherlock righted himself and scrambled back to sit again.

“ _ R _ ! It’s another  _ R _ .”

“Told you.” Lestrade nodded. “Queen or King. There’ll be a letter for James. And probably more  _ E _ s and  _ C _ s and  _ J _ s for all I know. Like you said, tribute to the monarchs.” He scoffed at Sherlock writing this letter down too and trying to puzzle out a word. He moved quickly when Sherlock placed his hands on the guard rail and tensed to swing down again. His hands were on top of Sherlock’s, and he leant forward, preventing him moving. His lips caught the grin curling Sherlock’s upwards as his kidling caught on. Had probably been expecting it.

“My turn to render a levy?” Sherlock murmured, his smile making his face even more beautiful up on high like this among the tree tops. He slipped his hands free of the rail and Lestrade’s hold to cup Lestrade’s face, his fingers as soft as a cloud. When he touched his lips to Lestrade’s, the air stilled, and the time stopped. The only thing not to slow was Lestrade’s heartbeat. That sped, then galloped as Sherlock slid his tongue along the seam of Lestrade’s mouth, demanding entrance. He couldn’t help that soft sound from the back of his throat and knew Sherlock heard it, by the way Sherlock’s fingers slid over his jaw and into the short, messy hair at the nape of Lestrade’s neck, and the way Sherlock’s tongue pushed into his mouth, Sherlock continuing to press soft, gentle kisses with his lips all the time.

His moan of excitement startled even him. Whenever they came together it was always as new and wonderful as a first time. He wanted to lay his hands on Sherlock’s face and match his caress finger for finger but had just enough wits about him to retain his grip on the sides of the guard rail and keep them safe, to be the fulcrum balancing their embrace.  _ Their relationship.  _ He understood that. Always had. Sherlock slowed, letting Lestrade enjoy the languid pace of their tongues playing together before pulling back, then away, leaning his forehead against Lestrade’s.

“Later,” he whispered.

“I’ll hold you to that,” Lestrade replied.

“And hold me?” Oh, he loved the way Sherlock had at moments like these of dropping his head and peeping up through his long silky lashes. He didn’t think Sherlock was even aware of it. When he replied, his voice was thick.

“And that. Always that. Never fear.”

“I don’t, Greg.”

He didn’t either, he supposed. Much. He remained a second, trailing his hand down Sherlock’s curls as Sherlock lowered himself through the window space. He wanted another second or two, not just to compose himself, subdue his arousal, but to breathe in the on-top-of-the-world feeling. Dropping gingerly down into the room, he recalled his thoughts of earlier, that Musgrave should marry and have a big family to fill the estate with the life and laughter it deserved. Because Musgrave would marry, to continue the line…whether he loved the person or not. Lestrade wasn’t in that position, wasn’t able to join in wedlock with the person he loved with all his heart and soul, couldn’t make new life with him. That might have been right, but it didn’t seem fair. Especially not here, not today. Not with Sherlock –

_ “Are you stuck up there?” _

– calling for him to come along and now.  Resigned, he did as demanded.

“So it’s not this tower. Back to the clock tower we go?” was his question, as he thought back to Irene’s comments of earlier about Sherlock searching both.

“No. We’ve already got the letter from there. We need the complement letter to this one.”

Sherlock looked across into the hills.

“Clock tower, cupola. Church, stables – although I don’t see the link there.” Lestrade frowned. “Prospect tower…”

“Ruins. Both follies.” Sherlock’s gaze was fixed yonder even as he walked back to the horses.

“See? Told you we needed transport. Now, if only you’d let me get a basket of food…” Lestrade lamented.

“Won’t take long.”

Lestrade didn’t mind. There wasn’t much else he’d rather be doing than spending time with Sherlock, even if he didn’t really believe in  this quest, this curse, this…whatever moonshine it was. He half wished he was an artist, to record his impressions of all he’d seen, here at this magnificent place. If he’d been staying in a fancy wing, with a water closet and dressing room and receiving parlour, what a story that’d have been for his ma and family back home. He made a mental note to write to them on headed writing paper from the House anyway. Lovely souvenir.

The animal track trail up the slopes to the ruins was barely discernible in some places, not maintained. It didn’t matter though, not with the destination visible up there. Sherlock admitted he hadn’t been there but once briefly on his first visit, him and Aesc content with the gardens and river and woods. Lestrade…couldn’t really imagine it. Oh, not Sherlock in a short buttoned coat and cropped pants, his long curls tangling with his ruff of a collar. That he could. He’d seen the miniature, and demanded to see the actual full-size painting, at the Mythe. No; he couldn’t imagine that miniature Sherlock fishing or gardening, or running wild in the grass. More likely in an old barn, mixing up potions or cutting up dead animals, his curls ruthlessly hacked off if they tumbled into his work. Lestrade gave a snort of laughter, earning himself a quizzical look.

It was his turn to look bemused, at the grey ruins. They looked…medieval. Gothic, he supposed. John would know. “An abbey? A convent?” he asked, running a hand over the remains of the round tower, no higher than his head, supporting the arched doorway, empty of door of course, of the entrance. A dark tree grew up through its middle, making the circle cage it in. “This was the gateway? And those arches the cloisters?” There were bits and bobs of walls standing upright, blocks of stone, their shape mirrored in the huge slabs set into the grassy floor. Graves? And the round remains of wells? Climbing vines clawed at the walls and skeletal trees shook and shivered.

It was only when he crossed to one high wall with still-standing columns that the sly symmetry and artful placements struck him, and the true nature of the place became apparent.

“Go on. Say it.”  Sherlock was leaning back against one side of the archway, one leg bent under him. When Lestrade looked over, Sherlock tossed him a Nashi pear he must have helped himself to from the kitchen garden.

“Say what,” Lestrade replied thickly, around a bite of succulent flesh.  

“That you don’t see why rich folk should go to all the bother of creating ruins when nature and time’ll do it, if you leave any building alone long enough.”

Lestrade had to grin at the impersonation, both the form and the content.

“Oi, piglet. Get your own fruit,” he remonstrated as Sherlock ducked his head to take a bite of Lestrade’s. Not that he minded, especially not when Sherlock’s silky fringe tickled his wrist, and his velvet-rough tongue tip licked Lestrade’s hand clean of the trickled pear juice. He turned his hand to make Sherlock’s self-imposed labour easier. “And you’re right. I’ll never understand the gently born.” He hissed as sharp white teeth nibbled his finger. “Naughty pup. Feeling frisky, are you?” He looked at the arch. Could imagine crowding Sherlock against it, to indulge in the subtle press of tongues and the lazy exploration of his mouth.

“Isn’t it…a little quiet here?” Sherlock asked in reply. Wasn’t that needed for what Lestrade had in mind? “Rather…too quiet?” Sherlock obviously didn’t have indulgence on his mind. Not by that narrow-eyed look on his face. Lestrade flicked his gaze around the desolate space with its darkened walls and stones and trees. Was it his fancy or were no birds flying over here? No; he startled at a loud caw and flap of black wings. Birds. He was thrown back to the clever, patient gulls of his childhood. Birds. Always biding their time to get what they wanted. Another joined the first. Not to peck the fruit from his hand. A third black bird hovered overhead and glided, wings outstretched. Lestrade threw his pear core. They weren’t interested. The birds were vanished now, invisible behind a jut of wall cut away in steps to look as if it had crumbled. Invisible and silent.

A mere glance between the two of them was enough. They rushed for the wall, darting behind it, and Lestrade threw stones to scare the ravens from their prey – the woman’s dead body lying facedown, bent and broken among the scattered stones.

“Rachel Howells.” Sherlock turned the corpse, gently and slowly, revealing the gross distortion of the neck. “Broken.”

“She fell?” Lestrade didn’t even bother looking up at the wall. “Tripped?” He did run a hand over the huge stones artistically set into the ground here and there. “Murdered. Pushed, stunned and her neck broken.” He couldn’t avoid it. What was the point. “By a man.”

“Unusual for a woman to have such strong hands,” Sherlock agreed. He watched while Lestrade removed his greatcoat and helped him cover the body with it.

“The man she went to meet before she went away. So why come back here?”

“Because whatever they want is still here.”

_ The solution to the Riddle. _ “Come on.” Lestrade pulled Sherlock to his feet. “Sir Peter’s at the games and lunch, isn’t he. The magistrate? We’ll have to inform him. And play it like Rachel, well, was foolish after her husband’s death. Gone simkin in the head and wandered about, not heeding. She was, anyway. Or at least seen as. He shouldn’t ask too many questions.”

They were a sombre twosome untying their horses and walking away. “By the way. It was  _ M _ ,” Sherlock said, suddenly, breaking the pall. “The letter. Carved above the doorway.  _ M _ .”

“What? Not  _ J _ ? But that doesn’t make any sense. Unless it’s for Musgrave?” But he doubted it, and by the mutters of  _ crrrem _ and  _ mercrr _ coming from Sherlock as they rode back through the woods, he didn’t either. But the matters at hand were more pressing. 


	6. Chapter Six

“Aesc!” called Sherlock, seeing him walking behind a cloth screen tied to two bushes. “What’s the connection between the church in the grounds and the stables?”

“And hullo, well met to you too!” replied Aesc, turning. He was carrying white bandages. Following him, they saw John tending to a few men sitting exhausted or dazed, including the two men from the morning, Long-Nose and his friend now sporting lank locks, his curls quite undone. The first had a bandage around his head, and the second held a cloth over most of his face. Whatever their plan had been, Lestrade didn’t suppose that had been their endgame.

“Didn’t think I’d laid on so hard, but my opponents seemed to be giving it their all!” came a comment from His Grace, ensconced on a stool at a travel writing desk in one corner. Had he put all of these men into the makeshift hospital tent, Lestrade wondered. The duke stood and gave his written pages to his aide, then slapped John on the shoulder. “Captain and crocus metallorum in one. Yes, it needs someone with military discipline and knowledge of doctoring to run these games! Excellent choice. And tomorrow’s game shooting and stalking, you say? Excellent!” Most of the men laid out on the floor, particularly Long-Nose and Lank-Curls, glared at John, and tried to rise to bow as the duke strode out, presumably towards the voices and music and laughter beyond the trees.

“What were you… What is it?” Aesc’s blue-grey eyes turned from Lestrade’s face to search Sherlock’s expression. Lestrade nudged them both out, behind a bush, signalling John to follow. “What’s happened.”

“Rachel Howells’s been found. She’s dead,” Lestrade said, as gently as he could. “At the ruins.”

“How.”

“She could have slipped and fallen. Her neck’s broken.”

“That’s not what you think happened.” Aesc was still not looking at Lestrade, and now he clutched Sherlock’s sleeve.

“No, it isn’t,” Sherlock agreed. “She was killed, undoubtedly by whomever she was working for.”

Lestrade waited for the moment it would sink in and impact. It wasn’t long coming – Aesc was a fundamentally decent person.

“Rachel,” he whispered, his eyes filming over. “She’s been here so long. From way back and…” He raised a trembling hand to his face. Sherlock raised confused eyes to Lestrade, and Lestrade mimed holding, hugging. After a moment, Sherlock’s arms went around his friend, sort of imprisoning him against Sherlock’s chest and patting his back hard, as if to dislodge wet sand from a child’s breeches, or dust from a mat. But, better than nothing. A minute later Aesc straightened and turned, dabbing at his eyes with his handkerchief. When he turned back, he was once again every inch the lord of the manor.

“Could we keep this as private as possible?” He cleared his throat and spoke again. “I don’t want mother upset. And the guests…I’d rather not have either gossip or hysterics. I think it’s best to tell Sir Peter the body of a grieving woman has been found. He probably won’t even want to see her. I’ll see to…collecting her. Whatever she’d done, or was involved in, she was a loyal servant here for many years. Could you, well, fill in for me? John’s doing an admirable job, for which, my thanks.” He gave John a wan smile.

“People have been asking after you.” John indicated Lestrade and Sherlock. “As Musgrave said, there’s gossip. Some of it about why is there a Bow Street officer here. Irene’s letting people think you’re guarding her jewellery or her person – threats from jealous spurned suitors or their wives and so on.”

Lestrade rolled his eyes. He could just imagine the little minx-

“And hinting you’re in love with her yourself, no doubt,” Sherlock added. “To the point that half the assembled are imagining her betrothed will be calling you out, that a duel is imminent.”

“Oh, rest assured on that score. I’m a rotten shot and haven’t held a sword in years,” Aesc vouchsafed, scratching at his red-gold beard.

“Wait.” Sherlock caught at Aesc as he went to leave. “You didn’t answer my question. I believe it’s pertinent to the case.”

“I wish I’d never heard of the damned riddle!” Aesc burst out. His lips thinned and a crease appeared between his blue-grey eyes. He looked older, more like some of the portraits they’d seen. “I think the most pertinent part is the last line.”

_But leave it gilded in silence, seek it not, speak it not._ Lestrade could agree with that.

“Too late for that, I suppose,” Aesc continued.

“You didn’t start it,” Lestrade reminded him. He found he’d stepped closer to Sherlock, perhaps to share a little body-warmth, in lieu of his greatcoat, and perhaps because Aesc was holding Sherlock’s gaze as he spoke.

“No. Well, there’s not much of one.” Aesc still stared at Sherlock as he answered his question. “When the current stables were rebuilt, the same stone quarried was used to make repairs to the church, particularly the roof and one wall. That’s all I can think of. That do?”

“I suppose so.” Sherlock seemed mollified that his idea was borne out. To whatever extent. He frowned in puzzlement as Lestrade then John formally expressed their condolences to their host on his loss. Aesc left.

‘“Watched over by the margrave knights in their tower,”’ John quoted, looking out towards the tower, then the ruins, then the copied-down letters Sherlock showed him. “I want to say this is all fee faw fum, but with two deaths…” He shook his head, shutting up as his patients left their infirmary, drawn thither by the smell of stewed and roasted meat. Piers’s voice could be heard exclaiming. “Piers took charge of organising the pic-nic lunch,” John explained, just as a discordant shriek of music rang out.

“Egads! From a Dutch oven to a Dutch concert and a Dutch feast, if Piers is mine host,” Sherlock scoffed.

Lestrade supposed Holland must be a fantastical place to have given rise to so many appellations for things, such as a concert where everyone played or sang a different tune or a feast where the host got drunk before his guests. And Piers trying to take charge would explain the late hour for lunching, Lestrade supposed. He wondered what Piers, perhaps nipping back to the kiln and casserole pot in the clearing in between bouts on horseback, might have had pinned to the back of his coat in retaliation. But more likely Mrs Hudson would have removed it. She had a soft spot for the ungainly youth.

“Well? Hurry along!” Sherlock chided Lestrade.

“But, lunch!” Lestrade all but whimpered. He wanted more than the dog’s portion, a sniff and scraps.

‘“People who have nothing to do, always eat luncheons,”’ Sherlock quoted, his eyes flashing like The Woman’s sometimes did.

Lestrade must have raised imploring eyes to John, because he said, “You can’t both going rushing off again! Lestrade needs to be seen guarding The Woman, especially with her intended not here. It’ll look suspicious.”

“But we need to hurry!” Sherlock was almost stamping his foot. Lestrade looked forward to spanking the temper out of him later. “There are so many buildings to verify!”

“I thought we were only concerned with the older ones. So that’s places like the Orangery out, before we even start,” Lestrade threw in.

“But that –” Sherlock broke off as someone came around the large bush they were still sheltering behind. “That…” he tried to continue, but trailed off, staring at Irene. She’d mentioned costuming the ladies as medieval wenches, Lestrade recalled, but had outfitted herself not in a long flowing gown and unflattering hat but in a short fitted garment, purple and silken and sumptuous, cinched with a golden cord at her tiny waist to puff out to mid-thigh, a thigh revealed in all its glory by the tight-fitting hose she wore. Long, soft-looking shoes and a round velvet cap worn to one side and decorated with a feather completed her ensemble. Her long hair was caught up and turned underneath to appear chin-length

“Oh, that?” she mocked, standing hands on shapely hips, legs astride. “I thought all the Middle-Ages damsels needed a squire to complement them.”

_Outshine them more like._ Effortlessly, Lestrade had to add. Credit where it was due.

“ _The Virgin Unask’d_!” breathed John. Sherlock guffawed. “I saw it twice!” John continued, indicating Irene’s costume.

“Remind me to sign a playbill for you, dear,” Irene replied. “Sherlock, I’ve been thinking – if the letters, as I think, go in pairs, they –”

“Buzz buzz,” he replied lazily. “Found two more today.”

Irene demanded to know them and stood still, muttering sounds such as _cerrmr_ , just as Sherlock had. “My thought was to seek out more twinned spots, even, or especially if those places are mostly vanished, ” she said. “For instance there’s a lane of what used to be large wooden carvings, boats, chairs, a house, and so on. Over to the east. Mostly rotted away now, they’re so ancient. And they would be of a similar nature to the treehouses with the old wooden bridge between them, almost mostly ruined.” She pointed. Irene had been digging deep into people’s memories of the estate: Lestrade could see by Sherlock’s face he’d never heard of these objects.

“Well, yes, and I’d thought of the oxbow and the riffle. Oh, and the meander and pool.” Sherlock twirled a negligent hand in the direction of the river.

“And the bees and the old menagerie houses?”

“Well, _obviously_.” Again, Lestrade could see, he’d never – “So if you’ll kindly excuse me?” He glared around the company, giving Lestrade’s hand a squeeze behind his back before he departed.

“Country manners,” sighed La Adler, putting her arm through Lestrade’s and John’s. “You’ll catch cold, sir,” she remarked to the coatless Lestrade. “Please indulge me and make use of my houppelande, I beg you.” And the little trollop gave the sauciest of winks before adding in a whisper, “Your modesty is safe. It’s an over-mantle…”

And La Adler danced attendance on him over lunch, hanging over him and supplying him with choice morsels, all the time casting sly glances at her fellow females, gauging their reactions. Mrs Hudson, knowing Sherlock gave him little time for meals, was seeing he got a decent feed too, and had deputised Molly to make sure Lestrade was well for provender whenever she had to be elsewhere. In her element, she was. Of course, she’d been a housekeeper at a big mansion, or whatever the Holmes place was, leaving for reasons…he’d never go to the bottom of. Molly, intelligent, anticipating people’s needs, was thriving here too, and the few of the Irregulars he could see were gainfully employed. He’d no doubt the remainder were busy about their duties.

Maybe he and Sherlock had been right, it did do people good to get out of London, even on a working holiday. Fed, watered, at repose, Lestrade was disposed to be charitable, even to Piers…consoling the neighbour girl, under her father’s doting eye and Irene’s rolling one. Yes, stomach pleasantly full, palate tickled and cleansed, at ease upon a rug, Lestrade felt that for the time being, nothing could incommode him and – Oh by his bloody eyes, _madrigals._ Had to be.

“In keeping with my calling, we’re to honour the Bard himself, William Shakespeare, in partsong!” Irene announced, snapping her fingers for her maid to distribute the song sheets. “So, let’s begin with _Orpheus with his Lute_.”

“Wouldn’t _Ye Spotted Snakes_ be more apt, for your calling?” suggested Little Miss Turner, indicating the second song, staring at Irene, her entire face pursed.

“Oh, poor dear, your _visage_! Have you just sucked…on a slice of lemon?” Irene asked, all sweetness and light. “Here, allow me to pat your back for you, help free it. You seem to be choking on it!”

Lestrade thought it best to intervene before The Woman thumped the girl so hard on her back she dislodged or snapped something. His eagerness to serve as Irene’s music stand won him an extra-bewitching smile plus actual buss on the cheek. Good thing Sherlock wasn’t there. Oh, he’d know what had transpired, same as if he’d been there, though, once he strode up, and took a good sniff of Lestrade. His eyes would narrow, then flash blue hell as he got a whiff of Irene’s distinctive citrus and jasmine cologne. Lestrade gave a half snort as he recalled Sherlock’s reaction to the little corked bottle, all the way from Germany, imagine, Irene had sent him once, with its card saying she believed Lestrade must be missing her scent while she was out of London. Lestrade had barely been in time to prevent the destruction. Still, Mrs H had seemed to like the present.

No, he wasn’t too worried about Sherlock’s absence, not during the afternoon, or the divvying up of the throng into barouche-sociables, traps and dog-carts for the ride back, or even at the dressing bell, or dinner itself. Sherlock wasn’t that fussed about food. Dinner wasn’t in the big hall, with its huge black and white squared floor. Tonight was the turn of the Blue Room.

“Bottom of right hand side of the H,” whispered Dimmock, standing solemnly at the bottom of the huge staircase, directing guests.

“Yeah, thanks.” Lestrade reckoned Dimmock wanted a blackboard and a bit of chalk, direct things to his satisfaction, like he did at Bow Street. Oh. The room was a dusky pink colour, not blue.

“It has always been known as the Blue Room, so I couldn’t change the name,” Lady Musgrave was explaining. “But I _could_ change the colour.” For a second a harder glint came into her wide grey eyes. “I mixed this shade myself. It’s redolent of ancient Hellenic ruins, baked almost to dust by a stronger, more primitive sun than we’ll ever know.” She wrapped her shawl around herself and closed her eyes, swaying a little. Lestrade caught the eyes of two new ‘footmen’ who were looking nervous, one holding himself stiffly and the other smoothing his hair flat. Oh what? Had the all-things-Attic-loving lady tried to mess their short crops into curls and swaddle them in lengths of white fabric, makeshift Greek cherub pageboys? With the winter chill, it would be the Blue Room for them, then.

He rolled his eyes at the thought, then wondered if the lady herself had modelled for the bas-reliefs in the ceiling corners. They seemed to be a woman with a baby. He recalled what Sherlock had said, about the child who had died, and suddenly the room seemed less sunbaked.

“A bit of sun’s fine, as long as the food’s not foreign muck!” a guest chipped in.

“I don’t think there can be much to eat,” Lady M said, snapping her eyes open again. “The servants were all helping at the al-fresco day today.”

“I saw one cove ensconced in the kitchen. Looked like he didn’t know what fresh air was and clung to his post like a barnacle to a hull,” the duke announced. He really did pry into everything. Make a good Bow Street man, Lestrade suddenly thought, stifling a chortle.

“And I made soup, first thing, just in case,” Molly whispered, and Dimmock announced. Which was fine, after the meaty lunch. And the servant, who’d preferred to spend the day in the kitchen rather than the open air, turned out to be the _pâtissier_ , which turned out to be a dessert chef, Lestrade learnt. Left to himself, the man, a refugee given work and shelter by the Margraves, and who felt his talents went unappreciated in the normal course of his employment, had spent the day turning out compotes of as many fruits as he could get his hands on, which was a fair few, and made macédoines in jelly out of all the leftover fruits that didn’t fit into the compote dishes, far as Lestrade could tell. Oh, and made an iced pudding and a blancmange in case there should be any room left on the table, seemingly.

“Sherlock’ll be at outs to have missed this. He’s quite partial to blancmange à la vanilla,” Aesc, seated one up from Lestrade, The Woman in their middle, said.

“I’ll see he’s kept some back.” Lestrade wasn’t about to admit he hadn’t known that. “Thanks.”

Aesc smiled. He was subdued, naturally, and Lestrade meant to question Mrs H and Molly as to how far the news of the discovery of the housekeeper’s body had spread. But he began to feel Sherlock had been gone a while. He wasn’t looking for him, not really, when he went for a promenade before retiring, and he wasn’t worried when he decided to stay up rather than retiring when Musgrave, who’d finished his letters to the deceased’s family, and John, who was looking over the replies to his invites to an impromptu foxhunt, some of them incensed at his flouting of all known rules of etiquette and squirearchy, did. He must have gathered enough notes for an upper-crust triple-decker novel by now, Lestrade reckoned.

Alone, he forced himself to relax in the warm, pleasant room and not think it too…still and quiet. The country was like that, whereas London was never silent, never wholly at ease. And he didn’t get much leisure there, not like this, here. So he kept his eyes on his book, then his journal, determinedly so. He resolutely didn’t start at the loud _pop_ of a log in the fireplace, merely cast his gaze thither to appreciate the blaze of colours in the new-born flame. And when he heard the hoot of an owl, he found he was holding his breath and counting, and ashamed of his relief that there was no third _whoo-hoo-hoo_. He made himself open the window to look at it, dark and immobile on the roof.

Which was when he heard movements and voices outside, entering the courtyard despite the blindman’s holiday weather, the pitch-black of night, heard the sounds of a struggle and one voice in particular he’d been missing all afternoon and evening, heard that voice hissing, “Let me go! Set me loose at once!” Rushing out, candlestick held high, he beheld…Sherlock. But what a Sherlock. Supported, dragged, rather, between Billy and Wiggins, wet, dishevelled, his clothes ripped and torn, his hair a fright and his face and hands…what on earth?

“I was perfectly fine!” Sherlock insisted from between clenched teeth. Clenched _chattering_ teeth.

“No you weren’t.” Mrs Hudson was apparently one of the party, bringing up the rear. “You needed to come in. Go on straight to the main room upstairs,” she directed a small procession, all bearing steaming pails of water. “I trust there’s a fire going in your grate?”

“What happened?” Lestrade finally managed, pulling his sorry-state love into the cottage, before the fire, away from the line of water-bearers.

“I was investigating!” Sherlock asserted. “It was all under control. Mrs Hudson overstepped her authority, such as it is, by having me dragged away and –”

“He fell through the rotted bridge into the freezing stream. Twice,” explained the housekeeper. “There’s a sort of mist rising from the stagnant water” – she raised her voice over Sherlock’s scientific explanation – “and I expect that confused him, poor dear.” She stepped back as John appeared, blinking and frowning. “And in addition he’d been on all fours about the bushes and hedgerow, looking for some wooden toys, or something –”

“Wooden carvings.” Sherlock tried a sneer, but it became a shiver.

“We saw him crawling into these old cages beyond the woods,” chipped in one of the lads, returned from delivering his steaming cauldron of water.

“The menagerie. As was.” Lestrade recalled The Woman –  “But his face and hands?”

“Bees. And beehives,” Mrs H said, succinctly.

“He does have a hard time of it with bees!” came in rolling tones from the hall. Their host had joined the throng. “You nickum-poop,” he chided Sherlock, catching up a coat from the hall to drape over him. “Got yourself in a nizy as usual. Just like old times!”

“Told you there weren’t no apes nowhere. That sign was a diddle.” Billy elbowed a companion.

“Or Jacksy don’t know his letters and him ‘reading’ it was all a swank,” sneered another.

It took Lestrade a moment to understand what the Irregulars must mean _. Christ almighty._ The stung Sherlock looked like a wet cat, even with Musgrave pulling out a hanky to rub at his bedraggled curls.

“We’ll need honey,” Aesc announced. “Ah, thank you, madam. Mrs Hudson, rather.” He gifted her with a huge smile and took the pot she held out. “Doctor, you’ll agree, that a smear of honey over a sting soothes it.”

“After the application of ice to reduce the swelling,” John agreed. “If we – Oh, Molly. Just in time.”

The place must have an icehouse, Lestrade saw. Molly carried a small cloth bag and held sacking to its bottom to catch any drips. She looked from Aesc’s outstretched hand to Lestrade. He solved her dilemma by taking the bag from her, and Aesc’s thanks to the whole group overlaid his to her.

“But first a bath to heat up and clean up,” Aesc said, as the group trooped off. He threw an arm around Sherlock’s shivering shoulders and turned to usher him up the stairs.

“Thank you, but I’ll take it from here, your lordship.” Lestrade found he’d planted himself in their way. He stared at the glass jar Aesc still held, then held out his hand.

“Oh, I… Oh yes. Of course. I just…” Aesc handed over the jar and stood, at a loss.

“Just…?” Lestrade prompted, daring the man to repeat his offer to bathe and minister to Sherlock.

“Wanted to help.” Aesc gave a rueful shrug; a sad slump of his shoulders, and a remorseful smile; an even sadder showing of his teeth. Lestrade was having none of the Covent Garden Grimaldi act. Be turning somersaults next, the cuffin would.

“I don’t need any help!” Sherlock announced, but the loud sneeze he finished his words with undercut them, just as the shudders racking his frame made a lie of the foot-stamp.

“Oh yes, you do,” John countered. “And I should know, I’m a doctor. If you’ve no objections?”

It took Lestrade a few seconds to understand John was asking his permission to aid Sherlock. He nodded. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

“What… Oh.” Sherlock looked from him to Aesc, and any clever or cutting remark he might have made died on his shivering lips as he was hauled upstairs.

“Shall we?” Lestrade asked, indicating Aesc should precede him into the parlour or whatever the cottage’s one downstairs room was called. It felt odd and wrong, ordering his host and his better about, but needs must.

Inside, Aesc caught his arm immediately. “I’m sorry, Inspector. Lestrade. So sorry. Once I’d have, well…” He ran a hand through his waves of hair, the firelight catching their red-gold. “It’s not my place. Of course I see that. And today, sorry for clinging like a vine.” He shook his head and paced a few steps. “It’s just, Sherlock always knew what to do, how to get out of scrapes”  – and into them, Lestrade would wager – “and old habits, and all that.”

“You’ve been through some times together, I see that.” He could afford to be magnanimous, in the face of the cove’s contrition. “But things change.” _Even if Sherlock is still tumbling into trouble and out of it, regularly._

“I wish they didn’t have to. I wish things could stay as they were, with me carefree, father still alive, me just the heir, running mad with Sherlock and our friends,” Aesc said, his face in shadow and his voice in his boots. “I didn’t realise what I had, didn’t…nourish it, when I had it within my grasp, and then it was too late, you know?

Lestrade thought he did know. He doubted if Sherlock did, or had, or would, and thought it was better that way.

“But some changes are for the better,” Aesc continued, in that eerie way he had of picking up a person’s thoughts. He bowed to Lestrade. “Just as we have here the better man.”

“And in Irene, the better woman,” Lestrade tried.

“ _Miss Adler?_ That’s just a lark! Mere high spirits.”

“Well, that’s a bit silly. Especially if she marries you,” Lestrade cautioned, catching up to his phrasing after. _Too late._

“Well, maybe that might be for the best.” Aesc sank down onto the sopha, the firelight reflecting the pensive cast to his gaze. “Make me grow up?  Talking of, go up. Go and minister to your –”

“Beloved.” Lestrade’s voice was firm.

“Beloved.” Aesc nodded three or four times, quickly, then swallowed before saying, “Lestrade…minister properly. Please. Oh, I know you will. I see it.”

He rose, and Lestrade shook his hand. It had taken a lot for Musgrave to tell him what he had, and Lestrade respected that, and him, a little more. With a short nod, as firm as those of His Grace the duke, he left to see to his…beloved. His most beloved. John had presumably tubbed him and left him, and Sherlock was looking better already, his skin even a little rosier in the light cast by the fire and the lamp.  He turned his wet head as Lestrade closed the door behind him and crossed to search for the brandy bottle, best way he knew to warm through to the inside. Well, second-best: the sight of Sherlock, squashed up to soak as much of his lithe body as possible in the wooden tub, using a cloth to soap his slender limbs, his eyes on Lestrade, well, that set a blaze roaring inside Lestrade.

“Hmm. No bloody nose, no bruised skin, no broken limbs – no sign of fisticuffs. Good because I’m reasonably sure that beating one’s host into bench-holes is frowned upon in polite society.”

“And what would you know about polite society, eh?” Lestrade replied to the silken purr of a voice coming from the bathing tub. He uncorked the drink and, not seeing a glass, took a decent pull on it, Sherlock watching all the time. When he knelt beside the bather to lean over him. Sherlock twisted to cover Lestrade’s mouth with his, and Lestrade transfer the fiery drink to him. As he did so, he placed his hand around Sherlock’s neck, curious to see how quickly Sherlock’s pulse sped, how soon a flush stole over his pale skin, how long it took for his pupils to open up. About as long as it took Lestrade’s, was his unscientific reckoning. He’d been conducting these experiments ever since Dr Watson had announced that Sherlock’s eyes dilated and his pulse raced when Lestrade was around – and what it meant.

He sat back, content with his latest round of technical observations. He saw a small cook pot had been placed on a flat stone in the hearth. Molly’s soup. He took it up with a firm, “Eat. I know you’ve had nothing since breakfast.”

“Hungry,” Sherlock admitted with a sigh. Little whelp had been zigzagging about the however-many acres for hours.

“Need me to feed you?”

“No. I’ll do it. You may bathe me,” came with a cheeky, heart-melting grin.

“How come it’s always me on this side of the washcloth?” Lestrade enquired, soaping up and passing the cloth down one long leg, paying attention to its agile toes. “Each other was what the doctor ordered.”

“Next time,” came indistinctly from behind the spoon.

He’d believe that when he saw it. Yeah, when pigs flew around the blue moon. Day of Saint Never, in the afternoon, as his ma would’ve said.

Sherlock had finished the soup by the time Lestrade had ended his attentions to those lovely limbs and got to that slight waist. Sherlock handed over his soup pot and spoon and felt for the drink, taking it up and copying Lestrade in taking a healthy glug. One slim arm came up to twine around Lestrade’s neck and hold him captive, for Sherlock to press his lips to him and share his mouthful of liquor in his turn. It burnt as it went down, as it should, but the softness of Sherlock’s tongue, questing, teasing, trysting, was a perfect contrast. It made Lestrade smile, creasing Sherlock’s lips for him. Lestrade put a hand on top of Sherlock’s and felt a bump in his skin. Sherlock winced, and a quick glance showed Lestrade a bee stinger, still embedded in Sherlock’s flesh.  

No problem, a firm suction of Lestrade’s lips around the wound forced the tiny but painful point up and a quick tug of Lestrade’s teeth freed it, for Lestrade to spit out into the fire. Sherlock had a matching stinger lodged in his other hand – Lestrade could just see what had happened, Sherlock protecting his face. He removed that in the same way.

“Here too.” Sherlock indicated a spot just under the right of his jaw. He peeped coyly up from under wet, elongated lashes for Lestrade to work on that one too. Lestrade did as bade, running a gentle finger over the stings on Sherlock’s face to check for any more stingers, but found none. He made sure he rubbed the soapy cloth over the sites, to clean the punctures.

“You’d best get out, for the ice. Hot water…” His breath caught as Sherlock stood, water dripping from him and steam rising, the firelight outlining him. He didn’t really dry himself, preferring to make the bath sheet into a blanket spread before the hearth, once Lestrade had pushed the tub away, then lie down, spread out all long and lean, marbelled in moonlight, more beautiful than any sculpture Lestrade had ever seen.

He took a chunk of the ice and held it over first one, then the other slight bump on Sherlock’s hands, pressing it down a little. It soon melted. Well, of course. Ice meeting fire. The contrast was shocking. Lestrade took another for the puncture on the jaw, but couldn’t merely hold that in place. No; this he caught between his lips, employing them to smooth and sooth the reddened skin there, where Sherlock was sensitive. Well, so was he. All men were, in fact. This piece of ice soon dissolved too, but Lestrade couldn’t bring himself to let Sherlock go. No; he was enjoying Sherlock’s indrawn breath and bitten-back gasps too much, and the way Sherlock arched his already shapely neck to give his tormentor better access.

His gentle sucks and sweet kisses soon became harder, more demanding, became nips and nibbles, Sherlock lying flat and obedient, moving his head to allow Lestrade to drag and scrape his own jaw all over his playground. His night-whiskers scraped, prickling and tickling, teasing and testing, and he only stopped when Sherlock gasped, to finish with an unmistakable bite to the left side of Sherlock’s neck.

“Oh pet, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I couldn’t help…I never can. I go…moon-mad, I think, around you. Needing to mark you. I –” _Want to eat you._

“I like it. You do too when I…”

Yeah, he cherished each close of Sherlock’s teeth around his flesh. Which reminded him… There were a few slivers of ice left, just enough for Lestrade to tip into his mouth and then suck Sherlock’s nipple, using the tip of his tongue to chase the tiny shavings of ice round and round until they were no more. Then he blew on the wet skin, just softly, and the contrast made Sherlock moan. For the first time Lestrade wondered how thick the walls were, if the occupants of the room next door could hear…anything.

Sherlock found his voice. “You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” He indicated Lestrade’s clothed state, and with a chuckle, Lestrade stripped, Sherlock’s rapt gaze locked on to each movement.

“Good idea. Things could get sticky. What with the next part of the medical treatment…” he said. He reached for the glass pot and scooped out a fingertip’s worth of the sweet syrup. He knew it had some cleansing or numbing or something properties, but he didn’t coat it over Sherlock’s wounds. No; this was all for him. _For them._ Sherlock’s lips parted under Lestrade’s finger as Lestrade smeared the syrup over them, wiping a sweet, sticky sheen, one he bent to clean off at once. He used both tongue and lips to lick and suck, sharing the bounty with Sherlock, who turned almost all-black eyes on him after to murmur, “Umm, dessert.”

“Nah. Got you some vanilla blancmange saved,” Lestrade assured him.

“Oh. I like lemon blancmange,” Sherlock said with a pout, and Lestrade laughed, uncaring if anyone heard. “Nothing,” he wheezed.

“And I wasn’t stung on my lips,” Sherlock continued. No; his lips weren’t the fat, puffed type that looked as though a bee had been at them. His were more refined, in all senses of the word, even now, kiss-blessed.

“I’ll try,” Lestrade promised, taking up the medicine again. “Can’t promise, now.” And sure enough, each time he trailed honey onto Sherlock’s skin, he lapped it off, loving the wriggling Sherlock did under his tongue. He hoped enough of the viscous substance had gone into each wound to clean them, or heal them, or whatever it did, because any last thoughts of playing physician fled his mind. Because Sherlock was erect under Lestrade’s hands and eyeing the jar of honey and Lestrade with a look mingling curiosity and expectation.

“Just a smidge,” Lestrade husked. “Don’t want too much…” _Mess? Stickiness?_ He couldn’t finish the thought, let alone the sentence, just found himself working Sherlock’s hard cock to expose the head, which he anointed with a slick of honey from a careful finger and bent his head to suck. He loved licking and sucking Sherlock’s hard, heavy length, and this was no exception, but he preferred Sherlock’s natural, true taste, his unique flavour, that salt and musk and realness. His attention had Sherlock fighting for control.


	7. Chapter Seven

“No; go on. Let me see you. you know I like it,” he encouraged, bringing Sherlock’s hand to his prick, positioning him to bring himself off. He did love that, would love to be able to draw, to capture that moment, those straining muscles, those closed eyes, that flung-back head in all its perfection. Right now, it was too perfect to just spectate. He crowded close, threading a leg between Sherlock’s, one hand on Sherlock’s shoulder to position them both so he could kiss his beloved, sharing this with him. Lestrade drew his mouth away every few seconds, returning to Sherlock’s lips each time with more breath for him, Sherlock’s own being caught somewhere on its journey.

His other hand he slipped low, over Sherlock’s, to squeeze for a second and feel the heat and urgency overtaking Sherlock. Just for a second or two, before his hand trailed lower still, to fondle Sherlock’s balls. Here was even more heat, and tightness. Sherlock wouldn’t last long. Neither of them wanted him to. Lestrade raised his hand to deliver a smart slap to Sherlock’s tight, hard balls, then another, making Sherlock convulse at his side and rip his mouth away to emit an inhuman-sounding cry. God, his sweetheart loved some low-down – in all sense of the word – treatment, at times like these. Needed a bit of rough touch, along with Lestrade’s gentle love.

“One to grow on?” whispered Lestrade, waiting for Sherlock to come down from the cloud Lestrade’s  sure handling had sent him soaring to. When he knew Sherlock understood, Lestrade smacked him again, the fat, full sound of the intimate slap echoing. Sherlock cried out, and Lestrade understood that just as surely as his beloved comprehended his intent.

“Not yet. Do you need me to get the strap?” Because they’d surely brought with them the twist of oiled leather, supple, strong and constricting when tied correctly, they used in their play, used to stave off the little death. Sherlock shook his head, slowing his hand.

“Good. Want to open you up first…” Lestrade left his actions complete his whisper, reaching for the soap neglected and forlorn on one corner of the towel they lay on. He’d smelt the scent of the homemade bar earlier – honey, funnily enough, cold-pressed on the estate, he’d no doubt. Now he coated his hand in its wet slickness that would ease his passage, got it slippery enough to reach down, stroking lightly now over Sherlock’s bollocks, and touch his fingers to Sherlock’s hole. Letting Sherlock get accustomed to that, he pressed firmly in, piercing the hidden, secret flesh with three fingers. And making Sherlock almost howl. He bucked at the penetration, but Lestrade had Sherlock’s leg imprisoned between both of his, keeping Sherlock spread open and vulnerable to the invasion.

“That’s it, love,” Lestrade whispered as Sherlock softened around his hand and pushed back onto the fingers splitting him, holding him open. He loved that, Lestrade knew. “I love it too,” he assured his sweet. “Love taking you, seeing you blushing all over, short of breath, stretched tight around me, riding me, even.” He wished as well he was a poet, able to describe the beauty before and besides him. The bounty that was his. But he didn’t think anyone could. He made his voice and the look on his face speed Sherlock to his end, to a breath-stealing, bone-jolting completion that made Sherlock seize up, caught on the eye of a storm, made him climax, dragging Lestrade’s little death from him too, pressed firm against Sherlock’s side, spending over his racked body along with him.

“Easy, sweetling.” Lestrade held him, calmed him, prattling sillies and nonsenses at him until he gentled. Only when Sherlock stretched and moved, back to himself once more, did Lestrade swab him down with a bit of the damp towel, cleaning himself to. He placed another log in the fire, wanting a brighter flame for them to look into until they fell asleep and one enough to warm them while they slept.

“But on the bed,” Sherlock said, knitting up the ends of Lestrade’s thoughts for him, in that way he had. Their host shared that ability, to some degree. Must be a thing of having Far Northern blood, although Sherlock had mentioned a different Nordic country, he’d thought, and –

“Careful, sweetheart! This bed’s not as long as yours!”

“As ours.” Sherlock, rubbing the top of his head that he’d cracked against the wooden headboard in his exhausted flop into the bed, spared a second to glance at Lestrade.

“Course. Here.” He took over the rubbing, settling Sherlock down. He chuckled. “I’d have thought you’d have had a gullet-full  of wooden things today, what with hunting those long-gone carvings, and the half-gone bridge.”

“So amuuuuuusing,” came on a yawn. “And the answer is nil letters. I found none. Neither there or on any of the buildings I examined in the demesne.”

“Oh.” Well, they couldn’t expect it to be a stroll along the seashore. “Better luck tomorrow.”

“Yes. Will be. Because I believe I’ve solved it.” Poor lamb, too sleepy to be properly self-satisfied. Never mind, he’d be extra-so tomorrow.

“I never doubted it.” Lestrade felt his own eyelids closing. “How?”

“The key is the words ‘secret’ and the direction ‘up hill and under stone.’ Oh, and the reference to the margrave knights watching. It’s pointing to a specific site, here, on the estaaaaaaate.” Sherlock yawned again, and Lestrade involuntarily copied him.

 “Yes?”

“Umm.” Sherlock’s voice grew fainter. Lestrade turned him more fully onto his side, for Lestrade to drape an arm over him and nuzzle into his neck. Not to arouse anew, but to soothe and settle. To keep safe. Because only after Sherlock’s slower breathing told Lestrade he was asleep did Lestrade let himself join him in the land of Nod, both of them securely entwined together. And although they moved and separated in sleep, on waking they were usually hand-in-hand.

Next day, despite their late rise, was no exception, just as Lestrade didn’t neglect to bring their joined hands to his lips for a kiss, not Sherlock forgo his usual matching gesture, to make their habitual start to the day, the bookend to their night-time closeness.

 

“I wish you’d tell me!” Lestrade complained a little later, over the scratch breakfast of leavings, this time in the appropriately named Breakfast Room, to the left of the entrance room from their courtyard. When he’d asked why this rotation, this perambulation, almost, of meal places, Sherlock had answered that as Aesc and his mother tended to breakfast in their own rooms and eat in what Sherlock referred to as the Sweetmeat Closet for simplicity, this tour forced the staff to air and clean each room it turn, twice a year with the arrival of visitors. A good enough system, Lestrade supposed. “All you’re doing is giving me different clues!”

“It’s somewhere overgrown. Neglected, forgotten,” Sherlock replied, with that air of haughty superiority that made Lestrade…want to grab him and kiss him, tousling his curls and making a muck of his neck-cloth. And the gleam in his sweetheart’s eye at Lestrade’s glare said _I know_. “It’s located within a mystery that has to be solved. I believe the answer lies at its heart.”

“Well, seeing as how _I_ didn’t spend time in the study yesterday ferreting out old maps and plans of the place…” Lestrade paused for the hit to register. “I think I deserve another hint. So?”

“Oh, it’s an amazing place,” reposted Sherlock, catching his lower lip between his teeth as he smirked.

“Hmm. And we’re on horseback?” Lestrade tried to steer Sherlock through the yard towards the stables. He didn’t want to clomp all over the property on a horse of two legs and ten toes.

“Yes, we’re…surely mounted,” replied the rapscallion.

The workaday dun and the grey high-stepper were in adjoining stables today, their heads companionably over their half-doors as the brown horse whickered and his more refined-looking stable-mate blew down his thin nostrils in reply.

They left the garden and trotted just into the park, entering a section with high hedges, not like the knee-high trims of the garden, and secluded benches set into nooks of the winding paths.

“It is neglected,” Lestrade agreed, comparing it to the garden. “It’s what, a wilderness, like Vauxhall or Islington Spa? What’s the binnacle word – Oh, _bosquet_ , isn’t it? Thought all these were destroyed, with the fashion for so-called natural landscaping and sweeping views.” He liked surprising Sherlock with his erudition, no matter where it was gleaned. The circulating libraries were a good thing, in Lestrade’s opinion.

“I daresay Lady Musgrave decreed the extent of the garden and so saved our destination because of its Hellenic link,” Sherlock replied. “Although the word is actually pre-Greek and…”

“…occupied. And how.” Lestrade looked at Sherlock as they approached the, oh, Maze! Hence all Sherlock’s hints.

“ _Labyrinth,_ ” Sherlock snapped from between bared teeth. “One which is overrun with tiresome females for some unfathomable reason. Madam!” he yelled indiscriminately into the air and stepped back hastily when Aesc’s once-destined mate popped up from behind an easily seven-foot-high hedge just inside the maze.

“The men are all away slaughtering game birds!” she declared. “This is a stimulating pastime for ladies only.”

“Explain yourself,” Sherlock ordered, flinching at a squeal and a shriek from somewhere inside the hedges.

“Well, seeing as _Miss Addle-Pot_ is indisposed,” Miss Turner began, and Lestrade shot a quick look at Sherlock, thinking, _Irene!_ and hoping the blonde local girl hadn’t poisoned her brunette town rival. “I resolved to arrange us a somewhat more challenging and intellectual day than yesterday’s travesty of decking ourselves out in revealing clothes and acting as handmaiden to a group of pseudo-warriors.” She sniffed and tossed her head, making her curls bounce. “There are better entertainments to be had –”

‘“Routs, riots, balls and boxing-matches, cards and crim. cons., Masquerades, mechanics, aquatic races, love and lotteries, opera-singers and oratorios, wine, women, wax-works and weathercocks’ I suppose!” cried Sherlock in a Monday-morning snit.

“Sir! Do not mention, let alone quote, that degenerate, diseased reprobate to a gently born Englishwoman!” ordered Miss Turner, sticking her pointed nose high into the air.

“Byron?” Lestrade guessed. The titled poet did seem to feature a lot in their relationship, one way or another.

“And for your information, sirs, we are engaged in applying the principles of mathematics and physics to reach the centre of the Maze!” the lady announced, jumping off whatever she was standing on and vanishing.

“ _Arrgghh!_ ” cried Sherlock. “Come, Lestrade. To the centre of the labyrinth, before that, that pack of wolves do.”

‘“Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey,”’ Lestrade, dragged inside the entrance, informed him, regretting endorsing Sherlock’s image of the women when cries and hisses went up all around them, their makers unseen behind tall hornbeam and privet hedges boxing the two men in and branching off left and right ahead of them.

“BYRON!” shouted Sherlock at the top of his lungs, like a talisman to ward off evil and perhaps hoping to scatter his invisible tormentors like a set of ninepins. “And of course we’ll reach our destination first. Any schoolboy knows that to reach the centre of a maze all one has to do is place one’s right hand on the wall as soon as one enters and follow it through all the way to the end. That way one isn’t fooled by the unconnected or islands walls in the way. It’s very easy.”

“Yes, indeed.” The blonde woman popped up ahead of them and to their right, again fantastically tall, casting a wavering shadow over them. Her hazel eyes gleamed as she gloated, “That’s the correct way to solve a unicursal, or single-path, maze. This, however, is a multicursal, or puzzle, maze!”

That long word she’d tossed at them meant the labyrinth had twists, turns, and dead-ends, Lestrade was to discover. A lot of them. And turn-offs into little islands or shrines, that you thought must be the centre, so shot eagerly along the stone paths to them, only for some stones to tip or slide, overbalancing you, into the holly pit or water pool at the side. Charming.

“You didn’t research this labyrinth?” he enquired, trying to squeeze the stagnant wet ooze from his clothes. His ripped clothes. “And once, bitten, twice shy, is it? After yesterday you letting me go first?” He rubbed his twisted ankle and glared at the treacherous slab of rock.

“Of course I studied it. It’s trapezoidal in shape, covers an area of two-thirds of an acre and consists of three-quarters of a mile of paths and…why are you looking at me like that?”

“No reason.” Lestrade got his heavy breathing under control. “What say we try and capture a set of those steps people must be standing on? You know, the people shouting clues and rhymes to help or hinder, I don’t know, the other competitors?”

“Ah, there would have traditionally been a margrave, a governor, stationed up a tree, to assist and…” Sherlock shut up, merely muttering, “It takes an average of thirty minutes to reach the centre.”

“It probably did, when the place was maintained in the old days,” Lestrade reasoned. He shook his head to remove the remaining drops of water from his hair, wondering if the surprise jets of water gushing at them had been part of the original scheme, or if the blue-devilled ladies were adding their own touches, ordering a gaggle of boys to assist them. Yet strangely the distant giggles and scuffles were company in this seeming isolation of hedges pressing in on you and promising and deceiving and frustrating you. If it hadn’t been for those all-too-human touches, it might have been eerie, the breaths of voices and flutters of clothing glimpsed in the distance, out of reach, melting into the shadows. He almost wished for the straightforward company of the beagle he’d held the other day, felt the need for its honest-earned breathing and no-nonsense swiftness.

Sherlock flinched as another burst of applause and cheers indicated someone had reached the centre, far yonder.

“There aren’t that many women in the house party, surely,” Lestrade commented, mentally counting the bedrooms. “Where did they all come from?”

“The locals just come over to spend the days here, to join in the festivities,” answered Sherlock, his voice mocking the last word. Made sense, Lestrade supposed. “This way,” he ordered, turning left.

“No; it isn’t. Right,” countered Lestrade, not for the first time.

“Why…” began Sherlock, stopping at the latest female voice to taunt them from on high, this one chusing to mock, “What price an Oxford degree, hmm?” and its owner’s head disappearing when Sherlock scowled like a demon and whipped around

“Hang fire. Answering back makes them worse,” Lestrade reminded him, patting Sherlock when, “A bluestocking beats a black gown!” jeered another voice from another direction. “A bluestocking beats a scarlet waistcoat!” sneered in answer from across the way, and Lestrade straightened.

“Shows what you know! That’s only the Horse Patrol, the Robin Redbreasts, wears those!” he called.

“So there!” came hard on the heels of that, in Sherlock’s baritone, making Lestrade stare at him in bewattlement. Sherlock blushed.

“My apologies,” he said, clearing his throat. “Just, for a moment, I fancied I was back in the schoolroom with my sister.”

“Ælfheah,” Lestrade remembered, making Sherlock groan.

“Don’t say her name; she’ll appear!” he begged.

“One day you’ll have to arrange things properly about that girl, else she’ll get into real trouble,” Lestrade warned, recalling the Holmes’s sister’s escape from her Bath seminary to London and a gang of chimneysweeps. She hadn’t seemed wicked, only very, very headstrong. “Maybe your elder brother could sort something out for her, if your parents are too advanced in years to give her the care she needs?” He flinched at the snort Sherlock gave at that prospect, and thinking about it, Lestrade doubted it was…feasible. “Maybe we –” He stopped himself. “Should go right.”

“What makes you…” A suspicious Sherlock narrowed his eyes at Lestrade’s mock-innocent face and dropped to his knees to examine the hedge. He straightened almost at once, a flutter of white in his hands. “Lestrade. I cannot believe you have been tying strips of cloth to mark the way we’ve come? What a waste of a handkerchief. Mrs Hudson will be fuming.”

“It was either that or leave a blood trail, pet.” Lestrade eyed him. “So, right?” He set off at a fast trot, to exclaim in pleasure when he came across an abandoned set of wooden steps. “Look! We can –” He had to dodge and weave as Sherlock kicked the wooden steps onto their side and stamped on them, rendering them useless. “Make firewood,” Lestrade finished. “Why.”

“I can resolve this! Without cheating!”

Shrugging, Lestrade followed his enraged sweetheart for another half an hour, occasional disembodied voices calling out misdirections and falsehoods, despite or because of the two of them getting closer and closer to the sounds of a group relaxing at its ease. The sounds of clinking teacups tormented Lestrade, and he finally snapped, taking out his pocket knife to hack a hole in a hedge with a wild war whoop, forcing a protesting Sherlock through and shoving himself through in Sherlock’s wake, to prevent his gainsay. They fought their way through to an oval space where a group of women reposed at leisure on a blanket, drinking tea and glaring at them.

“How unsporting,” announced Miss Turner.

“This is not a game, madam,” came Sherlock’s reply. He barely submitted to being brushed down and freed of twigs and leaves before he was off, prowling around the space and stopping at the tall and narrow plinth set into the ground, the base for a bust of a half-man, half-bull creature, blind-eyed, flared of nostril, marbled and veiny, its arms truncated: in short, the stuff of nightmare. “Look –”

“The Minotaur.” Miss Turner stuck her nose so high into the air Lestrade could see right up it, and he really wished he couldn’t. “He dwelt at the centre of the first labyrinth, designed by the architect Daedalus and his son, Icarus, at the behest of King Minos of Crete, although the name… _What are you doing?_ ” Her voice piped high in alarm as Sherlock wrapped his arms around the column and tried to rock or shake it.

“He’s had too much Hellenic art,” Lestrade tried, hoping to diffuse the situation as the woman all gathered together at the far end, watching wide-eyed and gasping. Lestrade spotted a sheet of paper on the floor and first dragged it closer with a foot, then pushed it into his pocket.

“It must be here!” Sherlock grunted. “We have to get underneath.” He literally grasped the bull by the horns, panting, “The answer must be buried under this monstrosit – Aarggh!” The horns snapped off in his hands and he fell back, onto his behind.

“Vandal!” was hissed. Small missiles, cakes and buns, were hurled.

“Desist! And bring me a spade at once!” cried Sherlock, throwing the broken horns to the ground.

“He’s going to smash it to smithereens!” gasped another voice.

“No; I merely need to dig it up,” Sherlock snapped.

“Or…just make a note of the letter carved onto the stone?” Lestrade suggested, pointing at the back.

“Oh.” Amazing how quickly Sherlock deflated. “So I was right!” And puffed up again. “Wait – _U_? That’s no monarch, nor can it stand for Musgrave.”

Lestrade noted down the letter, adding it to the list. _E R C R M R U._ Still seemed a lot of blather to him, some silly game, but if it kept Sherlock out of trouble, relatively speaking… “Love, that little neighbour miss seems smart. We could ask her opinions about the Ridd –” was as far as Lestrade’s suggestion went before Sherlock stalked off, his snub nose higher than even Miss Turner’s pointy affair.

Resigned, Lestrade brushed a smear of cake crumbs from the back of Sherlock’s coat and proffered the paper he’d snaffled from the ladies – a map of the maze, with the paths from the entrance to the centre – and vice versa – marked. Sherlock’s hand snatched silently at the paper, and Sherlock paused for a moment before crumpling it noisily and heading left. They were out in five minutes, the jeers and shrieks of the women trilling behind them. Lestrade changed his mind about suggesting they offer Sherlock’s sister a home. If she were anything like those females, she could take perfectly good care of herself.

“Where are the men of the party?” he wondered, the pops and bangs of the pheasant shooting having stopped a while back. Oh yes. They’ll be after the deer now, won’t they. Crawling on their stomachs, probably with bows and arrows, for all I know.” He hoped John, who seemed to have had enough of all that sort of thing when it was the real thing, was fine with it. “Didn’t you fancy it?”

“Can’t really see myself deer stalking.” Sherlock eyed him. “Come – Oh? Piers? Here?” He stared across the clearing at his cousin arriving. It couldn’t be anyone else, not in that up-to-the-minute ‘country’ garb, all russets and heathers and…feathers. Really, this costume mania seemed to be widespreading.

“Piers? Are you injured?” Lestrade demanded, seeing the young redhead sitting his horse strangely. He looked from the aristocrat to Billy, their Baker Street stable boy, accompanying him.

“I set him to watch over my cousin,” Sherlock murmured. Lestrade knew Sherlock had deployed various Irregulars to guard certain locations, but it hadn’t occurred to him the street-lads were also being employed as actual bodyguards. His surprise must have shown, and he flickered his gaze around, wondering if anyone was watching out for them. “Ah. Is this something I should have discussed with you?” Sherlock asked.

“No, pet. Just admiring your foresight,” Lestrade assured him, giving his hand a squeeze as they both loved to do, during their day.

“This hardly required much prescience,” Sherlock sniffed, indicating Piers. He gave a fleeting answering caress to Lestrade’s hand before reaching up to help his cousin dismount, raising an eyebrow at Billy.

“He got shot,” came their servant’s laconic explanation.

“Was rather bunged a tad, yes,” Piers confirmed.

“By…”

“His Grace, the D of W,” Piers answered Sherlock.

“Old Nosey,” Billy agreed.

“I’m afraid to ask where.” Sherlock rolled his eyes.

“His arse.” Billy again, supressing a chortle, not very well. “His Nibs yelled out what did he expect, looking like a pheasant breaking cover in that glad-rag pantomime get-up? ’Specially when he was bent over, picking up his fancy hat what blew off, displaying to, erm, advantage.” And the spiky-haired ne’er-do-well mimicked Pier’s position, and his reaction to taking buckshot in the rear. It wasn’t pretty. “Dr Watson said he’d best assist you two, keep him out of the firing line.”

“And because I’m no slouch at the detective work,” Piers added. “Oh, worry not, cuz. I’ve been shot before. A few times, actually.” He looked briefly puzzled, then smiled, showing his uneven teeth. “It won’t be the last time, that’s for sure.”

“That’s for sure,” Sherlock echoed, and Lestrade hoped Sherlock didn’t have a pistol about him.

“So, what’s afoot?” Piers enquired. “Let me get my napper to work on the teaser.”

“We’re searching for something on the estate that’s a puzzle or a mystery in itself,” Sherlock said, mounting his grey. “Something secret. Hidden, maybe. Similar to this hedge maze, perhaps, something”

“Like the hall of mirrors, in the old pavilion.” Piers nodded. “People don’t go there anymore, what with it supposedly being haunted. Shall we go?” He nudged his horse and was off, albeit sitting awkwardly. Lestrade didn’t dare look at Sherlock as they followed in his cousin’s wake. He saw Billy twisting to reach into his saddlebag, his hand emerging with an oil-cloth wrapped wedge. Lestrade stared at him until Billy broke the cheese doorstep in two and handed a half over.

“I’ll see you right later,” Lestrade promised, stuffing his face before Sherlock turned around and scowled. He couldn’t manage on fresh air and sunlight like Sherlock could. Lestrade was beginning to understand the way of the estate now. The garden was laid out in avenues and paths leading to things, such as the pool or tower, and the grounds, although overgrown, were the same – trails heading to places. He betted the place had been more like that before the formal gardens were laid out, and that they’d followed the original organising idea. It didn’t take long before they’d reached their destination, somewhere around the front of the house this time.  It was very neglected, and they had to dismount and go on foot, pushing through brambles and briars.

“There are no such things as ghosts!” Sherlock was informing his cousin as Lestrade caught up. “Probably. Well, it’s highly unlikely, let’s say. The balance of probability is against it. And now for this house of mirr –”

Lestrade had never seen Sherlock as open-mouthed as he was then. As Lestrade was. As they all were, staring at the wooden pavilion.

“Cuz?” Piers said, his voice wobbling. “Is it magic?”

“Witchcraft!” hissed Billy, crossing himself. “It’s not right!”

“It’s…floating?” Lestrade coughed to get his voice back down to its usual level. But the wood structure had no bottom…touching the ground. It also wasn’t stolid in construction: its horizontal wooden planks didn’t sit on top of one another, like a log cabin should, but had visible gaps in between each one, making it partly see-through. Its roof seemed to float a little, resting just above the top. And where there should have been a door and windows, there was…nothing. No wood. Nothing. Just the sight of the close-pressing trees and bushes surrounding the hut, swaying in the wind. “Wait. It’s not a solid building – just a front! And those are gaps, so we’re seeing right through to what’s at the back! Sherlock – Sherlock?”

“I’m here.” He came back into view from one side of the building. “It’s solid. It’s a real building.”

A few steps to peer at a corner told Lestrade Sherlock was right, and that the building was the same down that side. He also thought Piers and Billy were wrong with their supernatural theories. There must be a proper explanation. Only being here made it difficult to come up with one. He looked around the clearing, with its few benches and ornamental pots scattered about, once…nice, perhaps, but now abandoned and lonely, left to the trees and the whispering wind, and quite eerie, lending itself to fancy. He started at the noise, the scratch against wood, and whipped around to see Billy’s arm preparing to throw another pebble.

“Get it right through, to the other side,” Piers challenged him.

“You won’t be able to,” said Sherlock.

“Gap that size?” Billy pointed at the door-shaped…space. “Course I can.” The small stone he threw made a _tink_ noise and bounced back off. “It’s bespelled,” he whispered, drawing closer to Piers.

“Oh, for the love of God.” Lestrade suddenly got it. “House of mirrors? House…made of mirrors, yeah?” He strode right up to the structure and scratched his nails down a gnarled wooden plank, then up, as if to poke them through the gap between that and the slat above. But there was no space. Just a cold, sleek  smoothness under his finger.

“Mirrored planks to make reflecting panels,” Sherlock agreed. “The light and shadow and reflected light makes it look partially transparent, doesn’t it?”

It was so obvious, once you knew the mirrors were reflecting back what was around, you felt foolish. Well, except Piers, who still looked confused and murmured something about a mirage.

“Right. So we’re looking for a letter carved onto the building somewhere,” Lestrade instructed. Lestrade instructed. But walking all around the building, they found none.

“Inside,” Sherlock said, taking out a thin metal implement to force the door from its jamb. Inside was dark and thick and suffocating with the release of old, long-shut-up air. It was also dark, and Lestrade’s groping hand hit with relief on a metal plate and half cup mounted at head height on the wall – a sconce and candle. He pried the candle free but had no means to light it.

“Give us it here. I’ve got supplies in my bag…”

Lestrade trooped out after Billy and watched him take a square of char cloth from a tin, then strike a bit of chert rock against a steel rod to make a spark.

“I’ve never understood that,” Piers commented as the tiny pinpricks of light jumped from the metal to gleam as embers on the blackened cloth square. Gentle blowing encouraged them into a brighter glow, a tiny flamelet just about big enough to light the candle from. How long since it’d been lit, Lestrade wondered. From Sherlock’s reaction to the place, he’d never set foot here. Probably the strange building had fallen by the wayside as long ago as Musgrave’s childhood. He took a huge gulp of air to strengthen him before plunging inside again.

“No one does. That’s coz it’s magic.” Billy grinned at Piers as he led the way inside and walked hugging the walls to light more candles, their light revealing the hall’s high arches and ceiling-high columns. “Why’s everyone so quiet?” he asked, turning back to them. “Ohhh…”

If the outside had been eerie, this was…frightening, Lestrade admitted. Particularly when the door creaked slowly and shrilly to close, ending with an unnerving bang that made the flames flicker on high, extinguishing those closest to the door. It wasn’t just the forgotten hall, or room, or pavilion, or whatever it was, that was nerve-shredding. It was what it housed. Because it housed _them,_ or at least facsimiles of them, wavering, distorted…grotesque.

“Piers, it’s physics,” came in Sherlock’s voice and from ten different Sherlocks, some distant, some elongated to impossible proportions, some hideously dwarfish. As Lestrade turned to look at himself, his head was stretched like something from a nightmare, while the mirror next to it showed his body bent like a circus contortionist. And stretching out a hand to touch the glass was more disorientating still.

He closed his eyes, hating that he was shuffling back toward the door, and Sherlock continued, explaining and demonstrating that convex glass gave one effect, concave another; see? The effects could be combined to make unusual or confusing reflections, some humorous, some…not-so. Billy laughed out loud, eager for more “mirror trickery.”

“Let’s stay in a group,” Piers said, his voice almost a whine. “Where are you all? I can’t see with my eyes sh – I mean in this light.”

And that was the problem. They’d all moved, taken a few paces when confronted by the falsifying mirrors near the entrance, and were now quite separate, in the shadowy, ill-lit room. And whichever way they turned, they were trapped, in an infinity of their reflections and reflections of their reflections in a huge, cavernous vault with myriad columns and arches.

“It’s another maze!” Lestrade called out in realisation.

“A labyrinth of the lost, yes, and I should think the letter we seek is on the far door I saw from the outside,” came in Sherlock’s voice.

“Damn pity we didn’t get in that way then.” Lestrade’s reply was grim. “First one to the far door kick it open and let light in. Agreed?”

Three sounds of assent were heard, and Lestrade took a deep breath, turning towards the louder of the sounds and regretting it when he found himself in a continuing hallway, facing himself in every direction and from every side and angle, his faces smaller and whiter as they went. The arches stretching away overhead were like the supports of an elongated bridge, making him feel like a fairy-story creature dwelling under its shelter. Half expecting to hear a river, he groped out for the pillar behind him and saw a dozen of his arms raise before and all around him.

He didn’t want to think he’d have stayed there, one hand tight around the pillar and eyes screwed shut until someone else discovered the exit, but a thin, high screech of some wild creature just outside make him start, losing his grip. Taking that as a sign, he strode forward, hands outstretched to test for cold glass panes blocking his way. A few paces later he left the long corridor, or illusion of one, to turn and find a small raised dais, a space marked out by a pillar at each corner short corridor. Thinking it meaningful, he swung to his right to ascend it – and banged hard into glass. There was nothing there. The ‘raised’ bit he’d tried to step onto was the wooden bottom of the mirrors. Of course.


	8. Chapter Eight

Then he saw Sherlock, just one blessed Sherlock, and signalled frantically. Sherlock didn’t respond, although he half turned, so he must have seen Lestrade. Lestrade was just about to call out when Sherlock turned fully, facing him, and vanished. Before Lestrade’s eyes. Lestrade swallowed and wiped his forearm over his sweating forehead. _More illusion._ But the sight of Sherlock not seeing him, turning from him and disappearing from in front of him – he prayed it had no meaning; no portent; no power.

“Every step brings a set of choices,” called the real Sherlock, from somewhere to the left.

“Yes, less of the philosophy, please,” barked back Lestrade.

“It’s mathematics, actually,” came in a preoccupied response.

“Well, less of that and more of the escaping! You’re usually a demon at this.”

“Inspector Cuz, don’t talk about demons. Please. Not right now,” came from a watery-sounding Piers.

“Here, these mirrors are obstacles, like in a country race!” Billy shouted.

Knowing that didn’t make it easier, not in the grey light of a few smoking candles, not in a hall too small and too big, not when the loud bang of a shut-up window suddenly come loose sounded. He didn’t know what was worse, the square effect of coming across yourself on a stage or platform that wasn’t there, so you couldn’t push, Samson-like, at two pillars and bring the whole affair tumbling down, or finding yourself in a pointed triangle trap, thinking you’d be imprisoned there for ever if you couldn’t find a way out. It didn’t need Piers’s wavering wonderings as to if his soul would be stuck there for eternity to make it worse.

He thought he must be nearing the other side of the hall, because there were a couple of sputtering circles of candlelight up high, their now-here, now-there flames making his faces swell and darken as he looked at them. He didn’t think he could bear any further  jolt of more cool, indifferent glass on his questing hands as he searched, so took out his cane, using that instead, the occasional tap and shudder through his arm better, in some ways.

“Sherlock!” He saw him, he finally did, ahead, tall and pale in this dark and that patch of light. He raised his hand to wave, cursing at banging his elbow on a pane of glass. The room felt airless, suddenly – no. If there was no air, the candles wouldn’t burn. As he thought that, he saw a mirror flame, sputtering, misshapen, fizzle out, plunging the hall into a thicker gloom. He could barely make out Sherlock, now, but he squinted and twisted, raising his other arm, and saw him. He…wasn’t alone. There was something, someone, behind him, poised to strike him! It all made sense – the door or window banging, the lights extinguished: their rival was here among them! Rachel’s killer was here, and he was after Sherlock. Lestrade’s blood ran cold, and his heart banged loud and slow, almost bringing him to his knees. But he was better than that. For his Sherlock.

With a loud cry of, “Noooo!” Lestrade brought down the arm he’d raised, the arm bearing his staff of office, brought it crashing down on the mirror in front of him, and, swinging it wildly, on the one to the right, then its twin to the left. The noise was staggering, cataclysmic, a cacophony of shattering destruction. In front of him now was a blank space, the erstwhile mirror’s wooden frame, and all was silent and still, the cavern of a room and everything, everyone in it, holding its breath. Maybe they’d been turned to stone, or to mirrors, as Piers’s infantile imaginings had it.

Well, he hadn’t. He whirled around violently, to see Sherlock, stepping forward to stand facing him.

Sherlock stared at the devastation, his haze flickering around the space, and landing on Lestrade. “Are you all right?” came clipped and terse, all in one released breath.

“I am now,” Lestrade answered, making a grab for Sherlock. Sherlock reached out too, and they clasped hands, hard and warm and real. “I thought…I saw…I…”

“Yes.” Sherlock understood. “I don’t think there’s anyone else here. I’d know. I’d –”

“Here!” It was Billy’s voice. “I’m at the door. I’ll light more candles.”

A second later, the room was better lit, and Sherlock made for the sound of Billy’s whistling, about which Lestrade would never complain again. They way was easy – they rested the mirrors in their path flat, lying them down on their backs.

“I didn’t know we could do that!” exclaimed Piers. “And what was the wager, because Billy’s won, see?”

“I’ll settle for my bread and cheese back,” Billy muttered, obediently holding Sherlock’s case of lock picks as Sherlock got the door open.

“I’ll see you get a proper supper plate. Blancmange and everything,” Lestrade promised.

“Rich man’s whitedish? Fancy me eating foreign food. If my Ma could see me!” Billy seemed mollified. 

“ _U_!” burst out Sherlock.

“Me what?” Billy asked, affronted.

“ _U!_ There.” Sherlock reached to trace the letter high on the door. “Another _U_.”

“Let’s get out. We’ve all had enough another yous,” Lestrade declared, sweeping the group into the early evening air. They all breathed hard. Sherlock hung back a little, and Lestrade would have turned to see why, only he felt Sherlock hard behind him, pressing against him, and Sherlock’s hands pushing the back of Lestrade’s coat up, then Sherlock’s arms coming around him, to cuddle him. His body was hidden by Lestrade’s and his embrace by the coat, in the manner of their stolen, private moments during their days. the way they turned a simple clasp or squeeze into a meaningful act of communion. Either might start and the other always accommodated, like now, Lestrade looping his arms behind him to pull Sherlock closer, bending his head to expose his neck for Sherlock’s lips. If their companions were aware of their  need for a few stolen moments, some closeness carved out of time like this, they made no comment, only covered the silence with their remarks and exclamations.

With a final squeeze, hard enough to bring tears to Lestrade’s eyes, Sherlock slid free and stepped away, and Lestrade was colder, lonelier, as he always was without Sherlock’s touch. He’d hold him closer than ever in bed that night, he promised himself. That was, when he’d finished taking the riding crop to that cheeky – in all sense of the word – arse. Six of the best, he was getting. _Needing._ Three apiece. Lestrade could see it now, those pert buttocks Sherlock enjoyed flaunting, well; he’d enjoy flaunting them even more when each bore three horizontal red stripes.

He closed his eyes, planning it. He’d have Sherlock disrobe, down to his fancy, flouncy white chemisette, paired with those court stockings Lestrade loved him in, all tight to his legs, shiny white satin. He wanted to snort in laughter – when did Sherlock attend court functions, or Almack’s Assembly, where such apparel was a must? He wore them for Lestrade. Lestrade who’d packed them for this trip. Lestrade, who’d grab a handful of the overshirt’s lacy white fabric to tie in a knot, at one side, shortening the garment so Sherlock’s nether cheeks were on display. He’d have Sherlock kneel on that blanket chest at the foot of the bed, his torso and arms resting on the bed’s softness. He’d leave him waiting a good few moments, heighten the wanting and longing – both of theirs.

“Yessssss,” Sherlock whispered, as if thought-divining again. If he could do that – and Lestrade didn’t see why not – he should be enjoying the pictures Lestrade was painting in his mind, the waiting flesh of those perfect globes, which Lestrade had Sherlock apply oil to himself until they gleamed, wanton and willing, the better to receive the sting of the crop. And the sing of the crop, as Lestrade dealt each stroke, the song of the journey and the resonance of arrival. The bite into the expectant cheeks, and Sherlock’s answering cries transformed into the number of the stroke he called out. _Sang_ out, no matter who was in the next room. And maybe the sound of their night-time joy would…inspire John and their host. Lestrade made a mental note to encourage Sherlock to be as vocal as he could.

And, he thought, after, after the half-dozen lashes, he’d have Sherlock stand shirt off and stockings still on in front of the cheval-glass, so they could both admire Lestrade’s handiwork. And glorious it would look, the red beat of the lines scored into the blank flesh. Sherlock loved the sight almost as much as the feel. Well, they both did. Both found it more than arousing. Sherlock would be massively erect by then, engorged and desperate. So would Lestrade. The slim crop, the thick leather strap, the wide wooden ruler: all instruments of correction, traditionally; of punishment, in some hands, and in Lestrade’s, pleasure. For both of them.

He’d wait, he decided, until Sherlock was red-faced and hot-eyed in frustration before sinking to his knees to take him in his mouth. And while he tongued and sucked Sherlock’s length, he’d grasp those recently attended to buttocks, the recipients of Lestrade’s attention, his _care_ , fondle their heat and sensitivity and make Sherlock moan longer and louder. Maybe he’d even prepare him then, prime him for Lestrade’s imminent possession and –

“What?” He became aware Billy had asked something. “No. Leave the candles to burn out,” Lestrade instructed him, not wanting anyone to go back in. Maybe he’d merely been prey to the building’s age and atmosphere, not to mention its strange contents, but he’d felt…something.

“Let me see.” Piers grabbed Sherlock’s notepaper and read off the letters. “It’s to mix up the letters? Oh.” His brow furrowed, and he scratched his shock of red hair and worried at his lower lip with his protuberant teeth. “Yes! I’ve got it! ERCRMRUU– It says MR CRRUUE! Look! Who’s Mr Crruue, Sher? Some Bonapartist who hates the Musgraves?” He looked from Sherlock to Lestrade with the air of a puppy expecting a bone, and Lestrade made a grab for Sherlock’s arm before Sherlock could raise it to strike some sense into his hapless cousin.

“Fine. Give me another turn?” Piers begged.

Sherlock exploded. “It’s not a game, you carrot-pated clump! How often do I have to keep saying that before idiots and halfwits! It’s an age-old enigma hiding something extremely valuable and coveted that I’m trying to find before the killer strikes again.”

Lestrade’s, “ _Sherlock!_ ” collided with the other two’s exclamations and demands to know more. “What did you promise Musgrave, that it’d stay quiet? Fat chance of that now.” He sighed and rubbed his nape. “Just calm yourself, all right? I appreciate you’ve had a rough pair of days, and that little episode was enough to disquiet anyone, but no point getting so worked up over a puzzle, however old it is. _Especially_ considering how old it is,” he added.

Sherlock turned a look of blue-silver fury on him. “I know you think it’s all nonsense, or that if it isn’t, someone solved it decades back, but I don’t. And I wasn’t frightened! Not like you!”

“Sherlock.” Lestrade’s voice was like a whip crack, and Sherlock flinched. “I’d tell you to take a walk and cool off, except that noise from the house is the dressing bell, isn’t it. So just keep your breath to cool your porridge with and the flash in your eyes to kindle fire, yeah? Now, let’s go back for dinner. Musgrave will be relying on us to hold things together, and he’ll perhaps also have more news about events as well. Well? _Now._ ”

He signalled to Billy to cup his hands for Sherlock to mount, and a mutinous Sherlock, lips pinched together thinly, did so. Lestrade hoped Sherlock would apologise to Piers, but he didn’t. Piers was subdued, saying nothing beyond complimenting the grey horse, and giving a sympathetic pat to the dun.

“Looks done and all.” Billy squinted at it. “What d’you call that colour, dandy grey russet? Runaway donkey? The Devil's nutting bag?”

Lestrade ignored him, thinking the poor sod of a nag probably got enough jibes and teases. That added to the silence, and Sherlock hadn’t spoken by the time they got back.

 

“I see the master is at work.” Aesc, offering pre-pre-dinner drinks in the lodging’s parlour, indicated Sherlock. Sherlock didn’t bother replying. He hunched over his notebook, staring at the letters and the words of the rhyme. It wasn’t nonsense or a game, an age-old tease to entertain Musgrave House family and friends. He knew it, and soon the others, Lestrade included, would know it too. His mind raced as he reshaped the letters they’d found into a dozen different permutations and correlated them with the words of the riddle, then its letters, taking the first letter of each word, then the second, the third…right down to the last. He tried various words of the riddle as keys, as cyphers, superimposing them on the whole, then did the same with the letters. He inserted the letters into the lines of the rhyme. His fingers worked feverishly over a map of the estate, tracing out complex routes and shapes _up hill and down dale, over sea and under stone_ , even when the map was removed during dinner – he didn’t need the paper any longer. It was burnt into his brain.

“He used to get like this, sometimes,” Aesc confided to Lestrade, loud enough to provoke Sherlock into hearing. “At school and at Oxford. He’d do nothing for a term then sort of load it all in over a weekend.” He broke off as Sherlock rocked back and forth a little, muttering.

“Sherlock!” hissed Lestrade.

“Oh, is he having a vision?” enquired Lady Musgrave. “Or communing with the muses, perhaps? How wonderful. I envy him. Make sure he has paper and pencil to hand to record his flight to the heavens, as soon as he returns.” Her signalling for silence bounced off Aesc’s instructing the guests to continue, to pay no heed.

Sherlock ignored it all, ignored all the stupid eating and drinking around him, the chatter, the stares, the explanations and the descriptions of the tapestries lining the room’s walls. None of it made any impression. His world narrowed down to _ERCRMRUU_ , then expanded to _t_ _he first and fiercest secret of a sovereign, watched over by the margrave knights in their tower pledged never to tell_. It was there – something! He closed his eyes as his mind roved over the house, gardens and park, walked the hills, climbed the walls, crossed the waters, _first and fiercest secret of a sovereign_. When he opened his eyes again, the women were being ushered out. He assumed it was time for the fairer sex to vacate the room where they’d eaten in favour of another room where they’d drink. So tedious, and he’d no intention of remaining any longer, segregated, to be given more drink. _Margrave knights in their tower._

He rose, and so did the others. Oh? They were leaving too? They entered the Marble Hall, and Sherlock _pledged never to tell_ turned to follow the last wisp of a dress disappearing into the room that led out into the garden.

“No, Sherlock!” John grabbed his jacket, wrinkling it. “The ladies are in there. We’re planning ours here.” He indicated the group of chairs and sophas arranged in one corner of the hall.

“He wasn’t paying attention,” Lestrade warned John. “Don’t expect him to join in, in either the planning or the acting.”

“Well, not everyone’s taking part.” John nodded at a couple of men already attacking the drinks tray. “There’s more than enough.”

“I am sorry for these damn-fool efforts,” Aesc broke in. “Not to everyone’s taste, of course, Charades, but Mother does insist…” He threw a sympathetic smile around the huddle of reluctant-looking men, firing them up. “Well, let’s try and come up with a baffling phrase to befuddle our fair opponents, then see what accoutrements we need to bring it to life.”

“No patience for games?” Lestrade asked. “Sherlock? Sher – John? Is he…all right?”

_Games._ _Of course!_ Sherlock could hardly catch his breath as he stared at the large black and white squares that were the Marble Hall’s floor. Arranged into rows, into columns, ranks and files, he suddenly knew – but checked anyway, running around the hall, from the door to the staircase: _sixty-four._ Sixty-four squares of alternating black and white squares. Sixty-four squares to receive thirty-two pieces, sixteen of each colour. “It’s this!” he whispered. “This is it. The Riddle. I’ve solved it!”

“Sherlock?” He wasn’t sure who called his name, only found himself back inside the Tapestry Room, facing Lestrade and Aesc. “Solved it?” That was Aesc, repeating himself. Lestrade clutched his arm, bringing him out of his trance.

“Yes. The Marble Hall – it’s a _chess board_! With whatever the Riddle’s concealing buried under it! It must be! Can’t you understand? _The first and fiercest secret of a sovereign, watched over by the margrave knights in their tower pledged never to tell_.” He took a second, catching his breath and seeing if anyone would jump in. They didn’t. “Sovereign – king. Tower – that’s the rook, or castle. Knights – a double clue there!” He could hardly get the words out in his hurry, shaking off John’s attempt to feel his pulse or his forehead. “Margrave, military commander, or knight. Isn’t Musgrave a variant of that?”

“Well, that’s one meaning.” Aesc nodded. “And bishop? The piece, the bishop?”

“Aesc. For God’s sake.” Sherlock shook his head. “And you with such good marks in Latin.”

“Bishop – [_episcopus_](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/episcopus#Latin)? More vulgarly, _biscopus_?” Aesc replied, frowning.

“And what does it mean?” Sherlock was practically shouting, grabbing Aesc’s shoulders to shake him.

“Overseer. But – Oh.”

“Finally! _Watched over_.” Sherlock shook him harder. Lestrade separated them, looking hard at him.

“There’s more pieces in chess,” he said. “There’s a queen, for one.”

“ _First and fiercest_. Another double clue,” Sherlock replied. He couldn’t believe how slow they all were. This was agony. “I suppose the word in the Riddle was originally _fierce_. Just as the piece wasn’t originally a queen. That nomenclature only began with the medieval tradition of the troubadour and courtly love.” He slapped a hand against a particularly offensive tapestry depicting a group of ladies and minstrels in an unlikely glade. “The piece was originally the counsellor or prime minister or vizier, which in Arabic is _firz_ , giving us the original name in English, _fers_.”

As they stared at him, he groaned and pulled on his curls in his anguish. “The name and the game piece became _fierge_ , in French, then _vierge_ , as most of Christendom worships the Queen of Heaven, or Virgin Mary. Even if they’re not Catholics. Like here!” He pointed at the cornice and the faint plasterwork of a mother and child.

“King, queen, rook, bishop, knight…” John listed, counting on his fingers.

“Pawn,” came in a sigh from behind the semicircle facing Sherlock. Billy, Irregular, stable boy, latterly footman and guard. He scratched a hand through his shock of black hair. “I dunno the Latin.”

“Do you?” Lestrade challenged Aesc, making Sherlock frown at him.

“ _Pion_?” Aesc tried. “It means foot soldier.”

“Try another meaning of pawn.”

“A long time since school or university, you know,” Aesc answered Sherlock’s demand.

“What, like pawn as in leaving a possession for security with a creditor?” Lestrade asked, thinking of the pawnbroker’s.

“Which is also known as a –”

“Pledge.” Lestrade beat Sherlock to it.

“As in, ‘Pledged never to tell’?” John asked, his brow crinkled. There was a silence. “The most common piece got the hardest clue,” he commented. “Doesn’t seem fitting. And that’s it? It seems…unlikely. That it was under people’s noses all the time?”

“Need a big nose.” Billy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “That hall’s massive.”

“I pray you, friend, don’t dig up the whole floor,” Aesc begged with a crooked smile, making for the door. “Sorry, but I have to get back to the guests. They’ll need to comb the house for items in order to enact whatever phrase they’ve chosen. John? You’re charged with keeping things going, yes?”

“Can’t you see!” burst out Sherlock, but the idiotic pair left.

“Sherlock.” Oh he hated it when Lestrade shook his head in that manner. “I just think you’ve gone game-crazed. Got too deep into the riddles, the challenges, real or imagined. It’s the way you are. Don’t look at me like that. Just let me ask you one question. If that’s the chess board and the answer lies in playing some sort of match to get to the winning square and the treasure, yeah, then where are the pieces, hey? Don’t say you’re going to deck everyone out as queens and knights for a game of human chess, and the treasure’s magically buried under a certain square that miraculously slides back when the winner says Check–”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Sherlock stamped his foot and shook his hair from his eyes. “The pieces? As the rhyme says, they’re, _up hill and down dale_ –”

‘“Over sea and under stone’? So instead of ankling about the place looking for letters, you’ll be looking for what, a king, a queen, a rook –”

“The bishop’s in the church. The church in the grounds. You saw it, a bust on a half-column. The knight’s at the stables. The statue in the yard they use as a hitching post and mounting block.” He knew his words were tumbling and spinning, pebbles in a waterfall. He didn’t care. “There’s a statue of Queen Charlotte in the Orangery because the building was inspired by the Orangery at the royal estates of Richmond and Kew.”

“Sherlock.” Lestrade looked towards the door – they were being called. “This is getting a little nonsensical. You’d do well to remember the last bit of the poem, I think.”

‘“Seek it not’?” Sherlock’s voice cracked with indignation. “Certainly not! Come on!”

Their names were called again, someone asking for Lestrade’s help with something, and someone knocked on the door. “I can’t,” Lestrade said.

“You mean you won’t,” Sherlock capped, flatly. “I’m on my own.”

“Yes, for another mixed bag of moonshine and moondust, like last night!” Lestrade called after his departing figure. “Musgrave said this Riddle claims victims, didn’t he, and it’s already sent one person insane in this generation!”

_Fine. So be it._ He buzzed in a state of angry indignation as he crunched over the frosty ground, uncaring of his destination. Lestrade was behaving just like Mycroft, or even their parents, thinking that giving him a puzzle to work on kept him occupied, out of their way, their grown-up, slow, boring pursuits. What they were all dealing with here wasn’t some recently stitched-together conundrum, designed to fill up an hour or two, to sop up excess energy, or even to sharpen wits on. He stomped on, still angry. No, even as a child, visiting here, he’d known the mysterious Riddle had a significance, a deadly importance. And he’d been right.

His mind ranged over the two deaths, the connections, the scenes, the intentions...the ramifications. Two – it wasn’t enough. Hadn’t been enough. The villain hadn’t got what he sought. There’d be more. And soon. He could feel it, scent it. He shivered, inadequately dressed in the chill and dark.

Oh. He was at the Orangery. Really, the Musgraves needed better locks. This was no deterrent. The place held no interest for him. He’d no desire to walk its symmetrical pathways, to see the orange and lemon trees, sustained by the underfloor warming system, to nod in understanding that the walkways held smaller, more intimate enclosures, mirroring the layout of the garden outside. Lady Musgrave had a desk and shelves in one alcove, where she wrote soaking up the earthy scents and basking in the warmth and sunshine. He stayed just inside the conservatory, examining its tribute bust of the heavy-faced and heavy-eyed queen. There was, of course, no way to remove it. No mechanism, no catch. And no letter carved into the stone column it rested on, just a metal plaque affixed, and never moved since its fixing. The idea of taking the statue to the Marble Hall was ludicrous.

Lestrade would like this building, Sherlock found himself thinking. He’d like the fountain in the centre, would poke his finger into the hollow pool and its flittering golden fish. He’d – No time for that now. Sherlock set out for the church, just to satisfy himself that the effigy of the bishop it housed was fixed, obdurate…and not part of the Riddle. He had to admit his idea had been fantastical. But the sovereign, the queen, the knight…he’d been so sure. The Musgrave Riddle got under one’s skin, into one’s blood. as several generations had found out, to their cost.

No; his original notion, finding and making sense of the letters, had been correct. He’d been right from the get-go, of course. This distraction with the game… He’d been cloudy in his thinking. Impossible to concentrate and work with all the noise and disturbance at the House. And the rich food and overabundance of drink. Had the place been empty of all but himself and Lestrade, they’d have had it done and dusted in a day, of that he was sure.

He’d wandered too far and was almost at the estate’s smaller stretch of water, a still rectangle glinting like a mirror.  The Reflecting Pool. Lestrade hadn’t seen this properly yet. Something in the cool of the night and the half dark of the shadows caught at him, and he walked over, moving to catch the reflection of the moonlit House in the stillness, to study different angles, different approaches. At one end of the rectangle was a Temple of Repose, he knew, its small central column hollowed out and housing a two-seat bench and flanked by two smaller columns, all topped with triangular pediments. At the other end of the Pool was another of the estate’s plentiful supply of statues, this some god on a small plinth.

He stood still, staring hard at the water, unmoving, hardly breathing. He was unaware as to which god this stone carving depicted. He didn’t care. It didn’t matter. His only interest lay in the fact that a letter was plainly visible on the still water, visible because it was carved into the statue’s base! He barely needed to race to the plinth to verify it. _E_! Elizabeth, as Lestrade thought? And even if it wasn’t, that gave them _ERCRMRUUE_. And if the letters were paired, that meant… He scanned the surface, frowning as a small skeleton branch creaked and rustled free from an outstretching tree to land on the meniscus, making small ripples and distorting any reflection. Stupidly, he knelt and put his hands into the cold depths, making a grab for the intruding branch and causing more undulations, complicating his task further. He suddenly felt very small and vulnerable, crouched down, his back to a wide-open space, and straightening, felt very stupid. Not the least because he could dispense with the reflection, the image, and seek out the real thing.

Maybe he did get too obsessed with his ideas. But he’d been correct about this! Even the quickest glance showed him a letter carved into the triangle crowning the temple’s middle column. _V_ _!_ That made...no sense. He forced himself to sit, to repose, to reflect. Noting down the latest additions to his findings made nothing clearer. No word or phrase came to him, and the bench was...too big to sit on alone. It was made for two. And two heads were better than one. Yes, Lestrade would have finished with the evening’s pathetic mummery by now. He’d be more than amenable to a midnight stroll, to a moonlit walk, to sit and think, perhaps under a rug or blanket, in the peace and stillness.

Sherlock rounded the House, not wishing to go inside and get entangled with any stragglers. He heard the hall clock strike as he walked along the front and was in time to hear the last chime of the clock tower clock too. He slowed and ducked into the shadow of the gate. There was a figure standing inside the courtyard. No, not standing: stationed, positioned to catch anyone entering via the side door or from the court or under the archway. Sherlock read the portent of the man’s stillness, the weight of his posture, and his heart slowed. He had difficulty speaking, but did so to call out, “Aesc, what is it? What’s happened?”

“Sherlock!” Aesc ran across the court to him. “I’ve been –”

“Waiting for me. Obvious. Because...” _Lestrade. No –_ “What happened?” he cried, grabbing Aesc’s shoulders again.

“You must prepare yourself.” Aesc put his hands on Sherlock’s upper arms.

“If you don’t tell me this second –” _Because – No._ He’d know.

“He’s been attacked. He’s hurt. Injured. No –” Aesc grabbed him as he went towards the lodging. “We couldn’t move him far. He’s in the House. Come on.”

They raced, Aesc babbling like a Bedlamite that Sherlock mustn’t fear now: John was the only one allowed in the room; Dimmock, armed, was on guard outside the door, Billy outside the window; only Mrs H trusted to send in anything John needed...

Sherlock nodded, swallowing past the boulder in his throat. “Tell me,” he demanded again.

“One of your lads was guarding the study as usual, on your orders. Jacky, was it? The boys were asked and wanted to join in the Charades, so Lestrade said he’d take his turn at the door.” Aesc shrugged. “A while later there was a noise – Lestrade fighting off his attacker, we suppose. When we got there, he was, well –”

“ _Unconscious._ ” Sherlock had shoved past Dimmock.

“Sherlock!” John rose from the stool next to the bed, his finger to his lips. Sherlock took it all in a glance. The acidic catch of the cleansing vinegar.  The room wreathed in smoke from the earthen pot spewing out restorative fumes. The four-poster and its inhabitant, who should have been alive and vital, tall and strong, stern and fair, but who was still, pale, his head swathed in a bandage. A bandage that should have been white but which had a blossoming red stain. It was all wrong. Lestrade shouldn’t be here, in this overdecorated room, not moving, his eyes closed. He shouldn’t have been on his own, back at the House. He should have been in his rightful place, which was wherever Sherlock was. Just as Sherlock’s was with Lestrade. This, this was all so very wrong. He’d been wrong, and Lestrade was paying the price.

“John?” Sherlock crossed to him, his eyes on the wound. “This…this needs…”

“I’ll change it again.” Sherlock watched John swab his hands with the vinegar, then unwind the bandage. The gash was bruised, torn and ugly. Sherlock snatched the vinegar-soaked cloth from its bowl and cleansed his hands, to clean the site.

“His right temple?” Sherlock frowned.

“He was lucky. Lucky or quick.” John raised Lestrade’s right hand slightly. It was heavily discoloured, the fingers swollen.

“The attack came from behind.” Sherlock coughed a little and blinked hard. “He heard something.”

“Or saw something reflected in a surface,” John agreed, soldier more than doctor now. “Turned and got his hand up, deflected the blow. Just the end of whatever it was, a club, a cane, struck him.”

“It’s deep.” Sherlock dabbed at the site. “He’s concussed.” He felt the raised, swollen area. “Do you think his skull is fractured.” He was amazed at how even his tone was.

“There’s no depression of the bone. There was no bleeding from the nose or ears, which would indicate a brain…” John seemed to recollect whom he was speaking to. He swallowed.

“I need to know. Tell me,” Sherlock demanded.

“There could be damage to the brain. He could have trouble speaking, or hearing, or seeing, or understanding. Even trouble with his balance or walking, or weakness in his limbs. I’ve seen head wounds lead to amnesia, people unable to recall basic information, or how to read and write.”

“No.” Sherlock thought of Lestrade at Bow Street, all the details of his work stored in his head, written up for his team or the Hue and Cry, and studied as needed. Lestrade poring over the newspapers, tutting or amused or learning. “No. That can’t happen.”

“We won’t know until he’s awake. He’ll have nausea, dizziness, headache…”

“What’s…” Sherlock’s questing fingertips had found – “Wood! Look, John! Didn’t you see? From the attack. Still embedded. Deep. John!”

“Yes, I saw. It’ll work its way free. With the gauze, to draw it out.” John looked down. Anywhere but at Sherlock.

“But the chance of infection… We can’t take the risk. What if it’s poisoned? It needs removing and the wound closing. John. _Please._ ”

“Sherlock?”

Sherlock indicated the gash going back into the hairline. His hand wasn’t quite steady. “It needs _saucerization and excision and closing_. Because Lestrade…shouldn’t…be here, not like this. _Please,_ John.”

“I…” John raised his hand and flexed the fingers, staring hard at them. “The wound, there, where it is…do you know what you’re asking, Sherlock?”

“For help, from the best doctor I know. The best he knows.” Sherlock jerked his head at the still figure. “I’m begging you, John.”


	9. Chapter Nine

“I…I…” John stood and turned his back for a minute. It was the longest minute of Sherlock’s life. When John turned around, his gaze was steady and his voice level. “We’ll need to shave his hair, there.” John blew at the lock, moving it. 

“I’ll tell Mrs Hudson.” Sherlock crossed to the door and saw Piers, ready to play messenger. For once he was glad to see him. Sherlock discovered the aeons-long minute waiting for John to overcome his tremor and agree to operate had been nothing compared to the actual operation itself. That took a century, one hundred years of pure slow agony.

After he couldn’t recall the details, just impressions, colours, mainly: the glint of the implements, the gape of the flesh, the silver of the needle, the black of the thread, the whiteness of the flesh, the red of the blood bubbles. The fresh red dots he wiped away so John, Doctor Watson, could work. But what he couldn’t see was the warm brown of Lestrade’s eyes. They were closed, and remained so during and after John’s work.

“John, I…” Sherlock couldn’t speak, couldn’t put his thanks into words, any more than he could his fears. But John understood. “Go.” Sherlock wiped John’s sweating forehead for him. “Get some rest.” There must be an anteroom or closet over the other side of the room. 

John finished checking Lestrade’s breathing and pulse. “And you?”

Sherlock didn’t waste his time or breath replying. Just banked the fire and settled next to Lestrade, wiping him down with the herbal water. He made him as comfortable as he could, settling him in the loose undershirt and soft-fabric drawers.

“Always the idiot,” he muttered. “Always fair and decent. Why did you offer to be on guard.” But he knew why. Lestrade would have wanted the Irregulars to have some fun, do something unprecedented, mixing with their betters in some country house games. “Why weren’t you with me.” That was harder to contemplate and ever harder to give an answer to. “We’re never separating again. Ever, even if I have to tie us together. Do you hear me?” 

He brushed at a stupid tear that swelled up, but wasn’t quick enough to wipe it away. It fell onto Lestrade’s face, a lone and mute witness to the scene. Which was when Lestrade gave a low groan.

“Greg? Greg!” Sherlock bent close, close enough to witness Lestrade’s eyes opening, to see that deep chocolate-and-coffee colour he’d never satisfactorily categorised, that warm light that shone for him.

“Must be bad,” Lestrade muttered, his voice rusty-gate hoarse, “if you’re acalling me Greg.”

“John!” hissed Sherlock.

“And tying us together? Better be nice soft cloth, not my cuffs, kidling,” came in a further croak, just as John reached the bed in time to hold the basin for Lestrade to vomit into. Sherlock dabbed Lestrade’s face clean for him and held a glass for him to sip water.

“Idiot, am I?” Lestrade asked, his voice stronger. “I’m not the one who–”

“Got hit on the head,” Sherlock reminded him, earning himself a strong glare from John, mixing powder with water. “And yes, I’m an idiot.” He grinned, his eyes shiny with the tears he wouldn’t allow to fall.

“What’s the last thing you recall, Lestrade?” John queried, holding the willow bark mixture for Lestrade to sip.

“Getting hit on the head,” came in a flash, with Lestrade screwing up his autumn-day eyes. 

“Headache,” Sherlock commented.

“And foul taste.” Lestrade choked a little but swallowed the physic down. 

Sherlock waited impatiently for John to perform simple tests on Lestrade’s hearing and vision and coordination of his limbs before he pronounced himself satisfied, for now, and Sherlock wasn’t to fret Lestrade, chivvying him in extra tests, and Lestrade wasn’t to permit it, and –

“John.” Lestrade raised a shaking hand to his head. Nothing wrong with his coordination! “I know this was your doctoring. And I thank you for it.” He caught John’s hand in an attempted handshake. Sherlock steadied his weak grip for him.

“You won’t be thanking me when you see the bruising.” John rubbed his hand over his face. “And maybe Mrs Hudson would have had a daintier hand with a needle.”

“No. You were in the best hands,” Sherlock countered. “I wouldn’t have had it any other way.”

With a final caution that Lestrade would probably feel dizzy and faint, oh and that he’d spread word and be in the connecting room, John left. 

“Come here, trouble.” Lestrade, lying down flat, crooked his arm for Sherlock to take up his usual place, tucked close to Lestrade, his head nestled on his broad chest for Lestrade to pet his hair. “I’ll be fine, you know. Take more ’un that to down me and you know it. I’ve had worse, out on the streets.”

“You sound like Piers,” sniffed Sherlock, blotting his tears in the linen shirt and trying not to wet Lestrade. “And you weren’t out on the streets. You were in Musgrave House.”

“I know, poppet,” came from just above his head and Lestrade lent in to kiss Sherlock’s curls. “I also know how you fret about me. Just as I do you.” Sherlock felt and heard Lestrade settle back cautiously against the pillows. His head must be aching, despite the willow bark, and he must feel weak. But still he took the trouble to soothe and comfort Sherlock. Whoever did this would pay. It wasn’t a threat, forming in Sherlock’s mind, just an ice-cold certainty.

“What do you remember, exactly?” he asked, keeping still and quiet.

“Some toerag,” came promptly, and Sherlock smiled, wondering if Lestrade could feel the shape smoothing through his fine shirt, and against this skin. “I didn’t see anything. I heard something, so I turned, and saw a cane raised to strike and I fought it off. Think some vase on a table got smashed.” He huffed. “So we’re no further. We don’t know anything more.”

“On the contrary. We know two things more.” Sherlock wriggled free, slowly and silkily, to look at Lestrade. “We know whoever struck you was left-handed.” He watched Lestrade finger the wound on his right temple, and realisation sink in. “He held the cane in his left hand. And we also know that he isn’t a stranger who broke in to the House to search the study. I have people watching and they’d have challenged such a visitor.”  
“You mean…”

“Yes. That he’s already part of the estate, with a right to be here.” Sherlock wiped Lestrade’s face again with the scented water.  
“Not a guest.”

Sherlock smoothed the worry lines from Lestrade’s forehead. “We can’t rule it out. But I’m assuming he’s one of the new temporary servants taken on to help with the party. Or he’s made himself a part of it. Maybe someone who comes and goes from the village, sometimes staying over.”

“Dozens of ’em!” Lestrade’s voice was trailing off. “Did you find…pieces?”

“I was wrong about that.” Sherlock watched Lestrade try to open his eyes, attempt to remark wittily on Sherlock’s admitting to an error. He was glad Lestrade couldn’t. “I found more letters,” he added. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“Later,” Lestrade managed to correct, before falling asleep. 

 

He could swear he’d only been asleep for an hour when Sherlock woke him. Woke him asking him his name, his age and the date.

“Thought I was the one who could be queer in the attic?” he asked, only to be told yes, that was why Sherlock wished to ensure not just that Lestrade hadn’t slipped into concussion-sleep again – hence the waking – but that he had no confusion or abnormal behaviour and… Lestrade gave his name and age through a massive yawn before falling back to sleep, taking care to squeeze his lambling’s hand. Sherlock might try and come across as cold and uncaring to the world in general, but to some in particular, he was compassionate and concerned. No one would call him icy and indifferent if they saw him worrying over Lestrade. He did fret so. And fuss, Lestrade discovered, being fed breakfast from Sherlock’s hand, the sick basin held ready in his other, and given willow bark potion, with Sherlock holding the cup, and shrouded in darkness, with Sherlock blacking out the windows.

“Love.” Lestrade could stand no more nannying. “Tell me what you found yesterday. Let me help.” He frowned, puzzling out the additional V and E, and Sherlock splashed flower-water on his forehead for him. Lestrade tried not to shiver at the chill and wriggled discreetly to blot the rivulets in the sheets. “That scent…makes me want the open air. Open air near water.” Lestrade took a sniff, imagining the scene. “Be lovely, that would.” He felt Sherlock stiffen at the idea. “And you know, we can’t let whoever did this think he’s won, that he bested me. I think it’d serve him right if I’m up and about. Indestructible.”

“Water?” Sherlock searched his eyes. Could he see into them, see Lestrade being stifled in this darkened sick-room when a relatively bright and sunny winter’s day crisped up outside?

“The lake, you mean?” John approached, hand outstretched to feel Lestrade’s forehead. He frowned at the dampness and the wet outline, visible on the pillow and sheets when Lestrade sat. Lestrade pointed at the empty pitcher of scent-water and Sherlock, his expression entreating. John nodded. “Yes, everyone’s gathering there today. Walking through the gardens and park for a change of scene and pace. It’s nice enough for boating!”

"John! Lestrade - "

“Will be better for some air. He didn’t suffer any lasting damage or effects from the blow to his head. Must have a harder head than your cousin!”

“But —”

“And it would allay fears that there’s some violent, crazed would-be murderer on the prowl.” John cut Sherlock off again and bent over his handiwork at Lestrade’s temple. He straightened, nodding in satisfaction. Oh, the relief. “Some guests have departed, on the strength of it.”

“Good,” Sherlock muttered. “Oh, very well. You’ll only have Mrs Hudson and I daresay Mrs Turner in here pleading your case next. Well, if we’re careful…”

 

Careful meant Dimmock and Piers walking ahead, checking the route, and the placing of a recumbent Lestrade, swaddled in blankets, into a closed calash. Lestrade, who’d looked forward to walking to the stables to see if the grey and the dun were sharing a stall today, looked incredulously at the coach.  
“It’s not like there’s some assassin perched in the tree-tops, waiting to take aim at me,” he protested. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, is all.”

He was allowed to fold the top back by the time they reached the Orangery and nothing had happened. He was permitted to unravel himself from two blankets as they drove through the flower meadow, and insisted on walking along the short path to the lake, pretty even in winter, with the tall, broad trees around the shore reflected in the water, water that was rippling with light wooden craft.

“Inspector!” Irene glimpsed him and waved, snapping her book closed and chivvying her companion to pole the punt faster to the edge. Seemed she wasn’t taking part in the races that Musgrave, was it, was hosting around the bend in the lake. She reached him as he was settling onto the Boathouse’s wooden veranda. “I’m so pleased you’re fine! Did you get all my messages and little get-well gifts?”

“Wh…yeah,” Lestrade managed, also managing not to glare at Sherlock.

“And of course I’ll stay right here and keep you company,” she continued, clinging to him and looking around the veranda sticking out over the water like the head of a pier.

“That’s not necessary,” Sherlock informed The Woman, shooing her away and batting his hands at the poppy-red shawl she was unwinding from her body to wrap Lestrade in, exposing her bosom as she did so.

“Thanks, but please enjoy yourself. It’s nice to see everyone on the water.” Lestrade smiled, indicating the punts, pedalos, rowing boats and canoes. They wouldn’t all fit in the wooden structure behind him. He betted that was for a spot of country-style gracious living, what with it having a chimney and all, and there was a barn or shed hidden somewhere in the trees housing all the crafts. “It looks so pretty.”

Irene preened, taking the adjective for herself. “And I can’t persuade you to lie with me…on a raft?” she continued. “Although, it might not be so restful.”

“Not if it’s like that!” Lestrade was looking at the race yonder. The rafts looked homemade, or at least home-assembled, and the competitors, trying to get across the relatively narrow bit at the top of the body of water, were whooping and screeching, their exclamations and exhortations ringing out over the expanse, as were Musgrave’s deep tones. ‘“Aquatic races,’” he quoted with a grin, recalling the list of country house amusements.

“Street urchins and local servant boys,” Irene sniffed. “Lord Musgrave has some strange Republican ideas. Quite Libertarian.”

“So does his lady mother!” John commented, pointing out across the water, to the lake’s other end, and the brave group of…swimmers. “Isn’t that Piers? Did he have a bathing costume on under his clothes?”

“Let’s hope so,” sighed Sherlock.

“Or not,” Irene smirked, putting a hand across her forehead as if to see better. 

Lestrade didn’t envy them the cold, although the space and freedom made him yearn. Be lovely to be back here in the height of summer, lazing in the water under the warm sun, when the breeze carried with it the scents of the flowers, to flop onto these sun-heated wooden boards or the grassy bank for a cool drink. He half wanted to ask Irene, sporting a different, bigger gem on her ring finger, this one a diamond, if she’d be amenable to him and Sherlock visiting later in the year, if she was mistress here. He guessed Musgrave’d have no objection to friends coming to stay, but it wouldn’t be just his decision, by then. If the pair of them...

He said nothing, however, and instead turned his attention to the small group of bathers. They seemed to be engaged in a race too, flashing and splashing from the far shore towards them, making for the boathouse. Oh, changing room, it must be used for, with a fire burning and hot drinks served. The House and its amenities adapted to every season. Lucky Musgraves. Lucky Lady Musgrave – she must swim a fair bit, rate she was moving through the water. The swimmers’ antics startled a small group of ducks or geese or some fat birds: they honked and squawked up from their little clump of green in the middle, flapping to the water’s edge.

“But those …” Lestrade started to say, pointing at a bigger group of smaller birds eeping and screeping as they flew up in a hurry, their wings making wet-cloth cracks in the still air. They wouldn’t have been disturbed by the river race, not way back there…

“Something’s coming through the trees,” Sherlock said. He squinted. “And it’s headed this way. Greg – go inside the Boathouse.”

“You go inside the Boathouse,” he retorted, straining forward to see back into the wooded area. “Because… It’s that lad of yours! You can see through gaps in the branches. Grimes, isn’t it? Looks as if he’s in a race too.”

“Or someone’s after him. Can’t tell. Wasn’t he on guard?” John asked, pushing Sherlock and Lestrade back with one arm as he walked down the wooden steps onto the grass, his posture alert and on guard.

“Yes. It means someone’s come through the main driveway.” Sherlock prepared to walk down the steps, but the Irregular burst free of the rustling, shaking branches and bushes onto the smooth green of the bank, followed by two other men, both of a similar height and build, both similarly dressed. Lestrade stared at the flurry of chocolate-brown cloth and gold trimmings and gold waistcoats and white starched shirts and white powdered wigs racing towards them.

“Footmen!” gasped Grimes, his thin, small, rodentlike face contorted as he fought for breath, hands on knees. “Proper ones! Lumpy mashed taters down inside the backs of their stockings and everything! Real footmen!”

“I think you mean royal footmen, dearie,” Irene corrected. “ And they shouldn’t have to pad their calves, much less should it slip. It wouldn’t look good with the scarlet livery they wear on special occasions, now would it.” She threw a saucy smile down at the two men.

Seeing the matched pair barely out of breath after their dash, Lestrade was reminded that footmen were called that for a reason, that originally they’d been more than household servants; they’d run alongside coaches, keeping them safe, and also running on ahead. He’d never known why, but now supposed it was to prepare the spot for their master, or warn of his approach. Learning a lot, he was, this holiday. He saw Musgrave scurrying across the water to them.

“Royal… Oh, bloody end to me,” cursed Sherlock as a large and tall figure emerged from the coach when it stopped, and strode towards them. The man was fantastically dressed in a resplendent uniform, all gilt and medals and sashes. With his red face and his popping eyes, he looked like something from a comic opera, perhaps one The Woman had appeared in.

“Madam!” he cried, his rubbery lips and large white moustaches quivering as he beat his breast with his fist. He took a letter from his inside pocket and his side whiskers bristled. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“Your Highness.” The minx sank into a curtsey, showing off her creamy-white bosom. “As I said, I sought –”

“Rural isolation, pastoral contemplation, rustic retreat!” He evidently had her words memorised. He threw a glance around. “So you come here, to this tiny toy house and garden and these, these people?”

‘“These people!”’ echoed Sherlock, shouting in rage. “There’s nothing wrong with these –”

“Cuz! Other cuz! Doctor cuz! Mus!” came up from the lake, and Piers waved, his form wobbling in the water as he did so. “I’m winning, look! I’m in the leaaaaa – Owww!” In his enthusiasm, he’d overshot, his momentum carrying him under the veranda to thud into the bank beneath it. Lestrade gripped Sherlock’s hand in commiseration.

“Ohhh! Ohhhhh!” came from under their feet, long and echoing.

“This way, Piers,” John said, bending over the edge to peer under the wooden boards. “Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not! It’s just… A letter!” Piers’s wet red head shot free of the shadows, and John helped him to the shore. “One of those letters is gouged into the bank! Cut deep. A Musgrave letter, Aesc!” he cried to the man hauling himself onto the grass at his side. “Maybe even the final one!” He looked around at the silence. “You remember the Musgrave Riddle? Miss Adler, you’re so clever with words and puzzles. I bet you could solve the whole thing now. It’s –”

“Irene!” yelled the duke, or prince, or whatever. He was pale as a ghost and looked ready to pop. “Not one word more, do you hear me? I’m begging you! See me entreat?” And the big beggar got down on his knees, with a little difficulty. “Lay aside those cheap, gaudy paste stones and deck yourself out as befits a duchess of Great Britain , my bride!” A snap of his fingers had a footman opening a small chest. Even from a few feet away the jewels and gold it contained gleamed.

“Oh.” Irene was stunned into silence. A rare thing, Lestrade’d bet. She listened avidly as the man, announcing he was defying his parents and even his country to wed her, exhorted her to cast off her thin cloak and clothe herself as she deserved, in a choice of furs as a princess of Hanover should. Her red mantle fell from her slim shoulders in a second, and she unclasped the diamond necklace from her throat and twisted the ring from her finger. She hopped down the steps, holding out the loot to Musgrave.

“No hard feelings, dear?” she murmured, winking as she slipped the jewels into her pocket instead of Musgrave’s hand. He threw back his head and laughed. “Send my things and maids on,” she whispered. 

“Not one word!” repeated the prince, his face peony-red and his eyes bulging like a toad’s. “Say nothing!” He unrolled a large paper – it seemed to be plans for a very large house. It was big enough for The Woman, anyway. Blowing them a kiss, she skipped to her new beau and shrugged into a huge white fur before popping into the carriage. 

“Onward!” cried the prince, managing to glare at all assembled.

There was a silence as the vehicle shot past the Boathouse and trundled off, the footmen hurrying to overtake it.

“I ain’t racing them again,” Grimes warned them, walking away, back to his post. 

“Oh, how romantic!” A starry-eyed John was mentally adding a royal elopement to his next high-society tome, Lestrade could see. He wondered if it would be one featuring himself, or rather, L’Estrange. 

“Hello?” called Lady Musgrave, reaching the shore. Her bathing dress covered more than Pier’s did, and servants hurried forward with towels. “Oh. Gone?”

“Yes, Mama. As has my fiancé,” Aesc answered. And half your gems, thought Lestrade. He reckoned the king and queen would be lucky if half the crown jewels didn’t vanish once La Adler strolled into the palace.

“Oh. Well, never mind. I’m sure the little Turner girl will take you back,” replied his mother.

“Oh I say!” came from Piers, shivering and blue. “I’ve reached an understanding with Miss Turner.”

In between John’s reply that he thought Piers had reached an understanding with Molly, and Piers assertion that that was only when he was a coachman, and Aesc’s insistence that Piers wasn’t really a coachman, even part-time, and Sherlock staring transfixed at a large pigeon shooting past them, flying rapidly, Lestrade managed to ask, “What was it? The letter you saw, what was it?”

In the now dead silence, Piers said, “An A.” And Lestrade just failed to grab Sherlock before he dived in to check.

“Lucky you’ve got so many towels,” said John to Musgrave, swaddling Sherlock in one as Lestrade pulled him out a few minutes later.

“A,” Sherlock confirmed, wet and sodden.

“Told you. Well, I am an Oxford scholar,” Piers replied, waving at Miss Turner, drifting by on her punt, then losing his balance with the motion, and toppling in again. The waves he created overturned her craft, and she fell in with a loud shriek, batting at the water and Piers when he tried to help.

“Looks like another wedding’s off,” Lestrade guessed, turning to Sherlock. “Hey, think we’ll be invited to the royal nuptials?” He doubted it’d get that far. The scheming vixen would probably shake her beau’s parents down for an even greater amount to disappear again and her ‘groom’ would be married off to a foreign cousin who spoke little to no English. “Good publicity for her next play. Wonder if she’ll commission one about this very subject. John might be in with a job there. Sherlock?” Lestrade made a grab for the blanket Lade Musgrave had wrapped around her damp guest. “Where do you think you’re going now?”

“The Grotto.” Sherlock spoke in a low voice. Lestrade at first thought he was hoarse, had caught a chill, then understood Sherlock was seeking not to be overheard. He followed Sherlock a few steps away.

“Why.”

“I felt something there. In the water.”

“Me too, love.” Lestrade squeezed his hand. “It was magical.”

“No, I meant… Well, yes, it was.” He loved making his sweetling blush. Sherlock’s, “I’ll never forget it,” had Lestrade colouring too. “I meant under my feet. In the deep end. Cut into the floor. I realise now it was a letter.”

Lestrade frowned, thinking back. There been a line, or ridge, or something on the smooth floor of the pool. “What happened to not being separated?” he asked, staring pointedly at his recently returned from the lake love. “You either send someone to check or we both go.”

“I won’t have anyone else there. I locked it to make sure,” Sherlock informed him. While Lestrade’s heart melted at the confession, he felt sorry for any Musgraves, present or future, who might have wanted to avail themselves of their own warm pool. He grinned.

“Together it is.” And within minutes Dimmock was driving them, both of them swaddled in rugs and blankets in the back of the coach. “Look at us.” Lestrade indicated their sorry sight, the old-maid transport, the lake-damp and shivering Sherlock, and him wincing whenever the horses, more bonesetters than high-steppers, jarred his aching head. “Is this what it’s going to be like when we’re old?”

“I hope so,” Sherlock replied, then looked startled at his own words. “Oh.” And the soft pink stealing over his face meant Lestrade had to rub his thumb over Sherlock’s lower lip, his usual signal for Sherlock to prepare for a kiss. And of course Sherlock did, preparing to receive and to give, at one and the same time, the soft touch of lips soon becoming heated and urgent. They were at their destination all too soon. Pity, Lestrade felt. Oh, Sherlock had locked the place up well, he found. He raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s a special place,” the imp muttered. It was.

Special it was, but the grotto wasn’t as warm without the stoves and lamps and candles lit, throwing out their wavering heat and light. The place was still light, even without the gleam of moonglow, and the thin light flattened the statues lining the walls, didn’t invest them with life. Good. The clingy, humid mineral smell seemed stronger than before, probably after the cold scent of the lake. “What… Oh.” He watched Sherlock remove his clothes, preparatory to wading in.

“Can’t have you fretting about my having damp clothes,” Sherlock called.

“And you want to flaunt yourself, you little doxy,” Lestrade replied, his grin knowing and appreciative.

“L!” Sherlock cried, and it took Lestrade a few seconds to realise he wasn’t blaspheming or making some play on Lestrade’s name.

“This letter’s L,” Lestrade echoed, helping Sherlock free of the seductive, warm caress of the pool and rubbing him down. Nice as it was here, he’d had enough of water for one day. He thought back over the clues they had and swallowed a chortle. “Not to turn into Piers, but the last four letters spell VEAL. Well. I’m baffle-headed, love. And how many more letters do we have to collect? Could be a whole sampler of ’em!”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock admitted.

“Let’s walk back.” Outside, Lestrade dismissed Dimmock and the carriage. “It’ll get you dry, and we can go slowly. Not get jolted.” His rash words unleased the physician – and the nurse – in Sherlock, who subjected him to an onslaught of questions and infantry of tests before he was satisfied and they could move. At snail’s pace. At least he didn’t carry me, Lestrade thought. The walk took an age, the evening’s shadows stretching around them. They’d just turned from a side path, one leading to a trellis, onto the long avenue to the House’s garden door when Piers came running down it, gibbering.

“Oh, what now?” Sherlock asked. “Does he think the House has vanished? Turn around, Piers! It’s behind you.”

“It’s Jane, Miss Turner!” he gulped. “She’s got a gun!”

“Well haven’t you?” Sherlock asked. 

“He means… Oh, never mind.” Lestrade shook his head at both Holmes. “What did you do to Miss Turner now?” he enquired.

They couldn’t make sense of his gasps and squeaks about Jane having run mad, but Lestrade shoved the shaking redhead behind them as they walked along the long path – to see a female figure seemingly standing guard just up ahead.

“That’s the Turner chit all right.” Sherlock peered. “I’d know that nose pointed at the heavens anywhere. How does she see where she’s going?”

“What’s she doing?” Lestrade wondered. She was carrying a rifle and patrolling around something set into a widened circular bit of the long path. A statue, or vase? “May we approach, Miss?” he called. “It’s Inspector Lestrade and Viscount Holmes.” He didn’t mention Piers, crouching behind them, walking like a travelling fair hog on its hind legs. “We mean no harm.”

“At last!” She beckoned, urging them to hurry. “I’ve been guarding this for you. After Viscount Holmes’s extraordinary behaviour at the Maze and Mr Holmes’s outburst of earlier, I see you’re trying to solve the ancient Riddle. I’ve worked out someone else is seeking the answer to it too, searching for letters hidden on the estate, and this contains two!” She was almost blue with cold but heated with purpose. Her hazel eyes popped as she studied the three men.

“Even if it does, our opponent may already have discovered them,” Sherlock contested, sticking his snub nose upwards too.

“I highly doubt it, sir. It would take exceptional intelligence and science and language and analytical skills to decipher them.” Her gun shook a little as her nose elevated farther, and Lestrade carefully relieved her of the weapon. Loaded, as well, it was. 

“What is this ornamental thing?” he queried, looking around the plinth at the base. There were no letters carved, so he used the time in which Sherlock and Jane were arguing about the humanities and sciences and observation to inspect the object. It wasn’t an urn or vase. He’d noticed it before, some conversation piece or other placed at a nice interval from the House and breaking up the long avenue, a good spot for a walk. It was two statues? One on either side of a round pillar with a flat top. This top bore markings and a slim, pointed triangular bit stuck out from one point to halfway across the…dial. Ohh.

“I study by correspondence, actually.” Seemed he’d missed a bit of Jane’s impassioned speech. “I am thus privately tutored by Dr Arnheim – I trust you’ve heard of him? At the University of Heidelberg? He directs my reading and thinking for our discussions, and sends me lists of books which I purchase using my allowance when I’m in town, shopping.” Her face showed her opinion of that leisure activity. “Or the material is sent to me at home, concealed within bandboxes or shoe boxes.”

If she married Aesc or Piers, they’d be unlikely to stop her studies and learning, Lestrade thought. She could live in London or Oxford and have teachers come to her. ’Course, neither Aesc nor Piers would be likely to have much in common with her. 

“So I trust you know what this is?” She laid a hand on the dial.

“Sundial,” said Lestrade and Piers from behind him. Sherlock finished examining all the markings.

“With an added wind rose,” he said. Oh yes! All the lines and points did look like those things on the corners of maps and charts.

“A compass rose, in point of fact. It has the orientations of the cardinal directions and their intermediate points. North, East, South and West, and North-West and so on,” she explained, pointing out each for Piers. 

“But –” was as far as Lestrade got in observing the markings didn’t bear those initials.

“Or I should say the pontos cardeais and the pontos colaterais,” Jane continued, reminding Lestrade of his dame-school…dame. He hoped Jane didn’t have a ferrule about her. 

“Why’s it –” Piers tried.

“It’s in Portuguese as the design is a copy of one of the earliest Rose of the Winds – I’m translating literally – ever made by Westerners. That nation were great navigators, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“And it was added much after the sundial was made. Oh, and it’s wrong.” Sherlock sounded as smug as Jane looked. “It’s not correctly aligned. In any language.”

“Not correctly aligned for the purposes of direction, no. And what did you say it was?”

“A sundial?” Piers looked scared he’d be writing out lines. “It’s telling the time, isn’t it?”

They all looked at the dial and the lines and initials. 

“N for Norte, or North, E for Este or East, S for Sul or South and O for Oest or West,” Sherlock explained, in a rush before anyone else did.

“The O is standing out – oh, it’s painted differently!” Lestrade watched the sinking sun ray illuminate it more brightly. “Is that why the rose compass is laid on it incorrectly? To show up that letter as the sun sets? That’s clever!”

“It is. And for the really ingenious part, we’d have to wait until full moon rise, because… No? No one? Then please examine the figures entwined around the pillar, Viscount, and kindly give us your opinion.”

Scowling at his preceptoress and muttering under his breath, Sherlock did so. Lestrade could see one carved figure was a representation of a male youth, classical-looking, all robe and dreamy expression, clutching a lyre, while the other side was home to a young woman, reminding him of Lady M with her Grecian-looking curls and dress. What was she holding, bow and arrows?

“Apollo, god of music, poetry, light and the sun.” Sherlock straightened. “And his twin sister, Artemis.”

“Virgin goddess of childbirth and women who swore never to marry.” Jane was lost in a dream for a moment before shaking herself. “And just as Apollo is associated with the sun, so is Artemis with the –”


	10. Chapter Ten

“Moon! It’s a moondial too!” Piers burst out, earning two dirty looks from people who wanted to announce it first, and a pat on the back from Lestrade. 

“Indeed. It’s constructed for both functions. Look at the inclination of the style on the gnomon.” Jane sighed at their ignorance. “A moondial is only accurate on the night of the full moon of course.” 

“Of course,” Lestrade agreed politely. “And if the sun part catches the letter _O_ as the sun sets, the moon rising must light up another letter, isn’t it?” 

“We can’t wait here for hours,” Sherlock decreed. 

“We don’t have to. I’ve seen it before. The moon dial shows up the orientation for the _Sul_ , or South.” 

“So, _S_?” Sherlock  said, rolling his eyes and nudging Lestrade to indicate how annoying he found the girl. He noted down the letters, adding them to the list. Lestrade looked one side of him and Piers the other. _ER CR MR UU VE AL OS._ Lestrade was none the wiser. 

 “ _V E R R U C A_ is verruca! Verruca…solution? Or salve?” Piers essayed. “Perhaps we were wrong and it’s the Musgrave _Remedy_ , cuz! I mean, those warty things are the very devil. People pay fortunes for a cure and…I’ll go. Right now. Sorry.” He actually did take a few repentant paces, but then straightened like a ramrod and sprang back to them.  “Oh! Oh! It’s got an _S_ , _E_ and _A_ , and an _N_ – that’s a bit like séance! I bet there’s more letters missing and maybe it’s saying we should hold a séance and ask the Musgrave ancestors what it’s all about!” 

“Or one in particular, and we don’t know which because we probably haven’t all the letters.” Miss Turner nodded. “We could make an educated deduction via family records, portraits and so on, and the letters we do have.” 

“Hang about.” Lestrade wasn’t sure he understood her meaning, or the eager look in her eyes. “You mean you want to try all that table tapping and turning and whatnot?” 

“Indeed not. I mean to attempt via the planchette Lady Musgrave uses for her automatic writing, when she channels her spirit guides to inspire her work.” 

“Jane?” Piers was alarmed. 

“I would greatly like the opportunity to assess if mediumistic spirit writing is a paranormal phenomenon, this ‘ectenic force’ which is beginning to be written about in some journal articles –” She left a gap for Sherlock, but he declined to fill it. “Or if it’s the opposing school of thought, also in its early documentation stage, that such things are due to an ideomotor response.” 

“ _Ideo_ maining idea and _motor_ , muscular action,” Sherlock gabbled out, perhaps feeling challenged. 

“Quite.” 

“You mean these medium women don’t have all this supernatural force but the people do it themselves?” Piers worked out. 

“Yes, dear.” And she patted him. “What’s the school of thought on it at Oxford?” 

“School...of Thought?” And you could actually see him trying to locate this School, or Division in the university. 

“But this is ridiculous poppycock and balderdash!” Sherlock snapped. 

Lestrade agreed, and still agreed when after dinner, some of the guests in one room helling and damnationing over the hand of cards they were playing and winning and losing, and some in another chortling and exclaiming over the _Musgrave House Chronicle_ newspaper they were writing and illustrating and compiling, he found himself in a select group in the darkened salon behind the Marble Hall, preparing to commune with the spirits. 

“Actually, I should go and see about the moon and sundial,” he claimed, rising when asked to place his fingertips, as if on fingertip-toe, on the small, heart-shaped piece of wood with its two wheeled castors and a pencil-holding aperture, used to facilitate automatic writing. “Someone should guard it.” 

“At sunrise and moonrise, yes. So there’s plenty of time before morning.” Miss Turner’s eyes were popping like a hare’s. In addition to the paper under the board’s stuck-tight pencil, she had her own notebook. As did John. As did Sherlock. Aesc had a bottle of brandy and passed a glass to Lestrade. At Mrs Hudson’s pointed cough, he poured her one too. Lestrade wondered if he should take another one, to really steady his nerves. 

It might quell his imagination, which was thickening and elongating the room’s shadows and telling him the darkness outside was creeping in, robbing each flicker of the four candle flames of their brightness and constancy. _Their life._ He almost jumped at the whimper from Piers, opposite him, which Piers failed to cover with a delayed, ill-timed cough. He patted Piers on the knee under the table to bolster him along, and Piers startled so much he tipped his chair over backwards. 

After righting the hapless Holmes, Jane practically grabbed Lestrade’s hand, forcing it towards the low square table they were all grouped around. With a final flick of his gaze to the garden’s glass doors, through which the moonlight crept down and in upon them, Lestrade pressed his fingertips to the planchette. He used his left hand – his right was holding Sherlock’s left, high on Sherlock’s thigh. As Sherlock pressed his right hand onto the device, at least Lestrade could be sure Aesc, seated on Sherlock’s other side, wouldn’t be using the occasion as an excuse to clutch on to his old friend’s hand. Either of ’em. Musgrave was free to grab Mrs H’s, at his corner, all he liked. 

“And you all have in your minds an image of the ancestor we’re thinking of? The first depicted Margrave?” Lestrade nodded at Jane’s words, conjuring up the bewigged gent, large of nose, thick of eyebrow, full of lip. That had been a surprise – he’d expected the dynasty to start further back, showing people with high foreheads, all pale and flat-faced with no eyebrows and wearing silly hats, or failing that, at least sixteenth-century grandees perhaps, all high ruffs and broad shoulders, carrying or pointing to things indicating their status or background. He’d never understood why the monkeys or the pineapples, there. Betted Jane could’ve told him. There was a long silence. 

“Are you there, Charles?” Miss Turner asked, loudly and suddenly, her eyes closed. Piers’s fingers were shaking, rocking the board, making Jane’s eyes pop open again in a glare. “We would know the answer to the Musgrave Riddle.” Her crisp enunciation of the word _Riddle_ made the candle on the right-hand corner in front of her splutter and its light waver fantastically, before it went out. 

“Or Ritual,” Aesc threw in suddenly. “We’ve never quite known what the actual thing is.” 

“ _Ritual,_ ” Jane repeated, her exhalation this time extinguishing the candle on the left-hand corner. Lestrade found his hand squeezed Sherlock’s that bit tighter, or maybe Sherlock clutched at his, as the dark gathered a little. Then, under Lestrade’s stiff fingers and before his unbelieving eyes, the planchette wobbled. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and Sherlock’s fingers gripped his bruisingly as the board shuddered and slipped to one side, just enough for the pencil to make a mark on the paper beneath it: a hard, tight curl, just as one of the two remaining candles blew out. 

“A _C_!” came in a muffled screech from Mrs Hudson.   

They all watched, but the board was now still.

“That’s inconclusive evidence. I need more data,” Jane announced. “Let’s chant the letters we know. _E, R,_ ” she began, looking around at the others. 

Then the planchette shot forward, a determined bolt, the pencil digging into the paper with the force. 

“Is there anyone there?” Jane asked, peering at the line the pencil had made. “Anyone who can –” 

She stopped, not because the final candle, on the corner between John and Mrs Hudson blew itself out, although that was terrifying in itself. No; she stopped because at the same time a distant voice sighed, “ _Sher-lock._ ” And with the voice, a dark shape solidified at the French windows, rapping on the glass and pushing it open, its features pale and blurry with the night chill and the garden dark. Several high-pitched screams were heard in the salon at the unearthly intrusion, Lestrade hoping one wasn’t his. 

“Sherlock,” came from the form, in resigned tones. “Little brother. I –” 

“ _Argggh!_ ” Sherlock’s reply was part shriek, part shout, part groan.  “MYCROFT! What the blazes?”

“Always the charmer, Sherlock.” Mycroft’s reply was all sigh.

Mrs Hudson lit the two candles near her, revealing the smooth face, the face Lestrade always thought of as _buttery_ , somehow, of Mycroft, Lord Holmes. His carefully bland smile filled the open window.

“If one might be permitted to enter…”

Then came a flurry of greetings and introductions and lamps and chairs and servants and drinks and travel enquires and smooth, well-fed apologies from Mycroft for his unforgiveable appearance. He did look a little windswept, for him, Lestrade noted, seeing Sherlock’s narrow-eyed assessment of his brother.  Lestrade busied himself moving the table away and arranging a cloth over it. He knew Mycroft’s sparrow-quick eyes caught it, though.

“Well?” Sherlock demanded as the ladies left the room, escorted by a servant. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“Always so impatient!” Mycroft caught his host’s eye. “If we may be excused? Family business, you understand.”

“Of course,” replied Aesc.

“Erm, no,” said Sherlock. Mycroft raised a silken eyebrow. “You may speak freely here,” Sherlock continued. He was bristling, Lestrade saw. If he’d been a cat, his fur would’ve been up on end.

“Here? Before…” Mycroft glanced around the room. “This is most… Well. Very well, I suppose. You are required at home immediately. Urgent estate business has come up and you are needed at once. It’s extremely…” He trailed off at Sherlock’s mocking laughter.

“ _Urgent family business?_ ” came in tones of scorn. “Is that the best you can do? Try again.”

“Fine.” Mycroft’s tone said it was anything but. He clinked his glass down onto the table and sat, smoothing his clothes with a prim hand. “In truth, I’m a little worried about the company you’re keeping here. If you choose to disregard your reputation completely, I beg you to have a care for mine, for family’s sake.”

“Company? What’s that supposed to mean?” Lestrade hadn’t sat and now advanced.

“Oh, not you, Inspector! I’ve simply no desire to see the Holmes name in the gossip columns, when the stories of this house party are written up, and dare I say, embellished for circulation, bigger and better each day until a new ‘story’ emerges.”

“Mycroft.” Sherlock shook his head. “What on earth are you talking about.”

“What?” Mycroft looked from his brother to their host. “Can it be true, that you don’t know, that you’re ignorant of your old friend’s, your host’s… Seriously, little one? You really, truly, have no notion that Lord Musgrave is Langdale Pike?”

“No!” whispered Sherlock, staring at Aesc, who opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.

“Yes, I’m afraid.”

Oh, how Lestrade hated that smile on Mycroft’s face. It made him long to wipe it off with the back of his hand.

“The celebrated gossipmonger with a morning column in the _London Day_ , an evening one in the _Gazette_ and a weekly in –”

“The _St. James’s Chronicle_!” gasped John, his eyes as wide as dinner plates as he feasted them on Aesc.

“What? You didn’t know?” asked Piers. “I thought everyone did. Me, I like the sports _on dits_ in the _Sporting Mag_ , you know, the –”

_“Monthly Calendar of the Transactions of the Turf, the Chase_ , etcetera,” Mycroft finished for him, with a nod and a wan smile.

“And they say he’s, you’re, getting a new space, in that new rag about literature, the _London Magazine_. Yes, a new corner all about the theatre?”

There was silence following Piers’s gushing. Lestrade could only imagine the amount of talk Aesc must have heard from Irene, or the racing and hunting news and stories that had filled the House for the past few days. The silence was broken by Sherlock, who threw back his head and laughed, loudly and uproariously, before clasping his friend to him and clapping him on the back.

“Well, you’ll be spending even more time in the bow window of a St. James's Street club now,” he said, shaking Aesc’s hand. “No wonder you’ve never had time to visit me, since we were both in Town.” Without a glance at his brother, something that conveyed more than a hard stare could, he continued, “So that’s why you were in town out of season. For the Frost Fair. Is it getting its own column?”

“Oh, Mus! Will I be in it? I say, you won’t mention me being sick, will you?” Piers begged.

 “Hey, Sherlock, why not ask if you can get a discount on the papers?” Lestrade suggested, jerking a thumb as Aesc. “The amount you read, for your cases!”

“I’ll see what I can do!” Aesc promised, his colour and bonhomie restored. “Shall I ring for champagne, so we can toast?”

“Don’t bother on my brother’s account,” advised Sherlock. “Oh, and after that miscalculation, perhaps he’ll kindly tell us the real reason he wants me away from you.” Amusement gone, he rounded on Mycroft.

“He always has. He ensured it, in fact,” Aesc said, drawing all eyes to him. His smile was sad. “Oh, don’t fret, Mycroft. I promised I wouldn’t breathe a word, did I not, and I don’t renege on my vows. I’ll not...revisit times past. They’re too painful. But yes, do answer Sherlock, I pray you.”

“I...I was afraid for you.” Whatever they’d been expecting, Lestrade would have betted anything it wasn’t that, delivered in a halting half whisper. “I’ve always been afraid for you, here. With your curiosity and impetuousness, your neck-or-nothing obsessions, your arrogance, your –”

“Wait.” Lestrade stopped the oily politician – or whatever he was – for his own good. Because no one talked about his sweetling that way. “You’re talking about the Musgrave Riddle? And the Curse, if anyone tries to get to the bottom of it?”

“Yes. And tell me you aren’t afraid for him, here. Haven’t been petrified, since you’ve arrived and Sherlock’s been at risk. Because he won’t stop, won’t listen to reason, or exercise caution. You know he won’t.”

The silence this time was longer and bleaker. Lestrade looked at Sherlock, and saw John’s eyes were on him too. Sherlock turned and took a half step away.

“And his mania puts others at risk,” came in an insidious whisper, a hiss of sound. And it made Sherlock whirl back, to face his brother and advance on him, only stopping when he was towering over him, preventing him rising.

“I’ve forgotten my Virgil,” he said, his tone casual. “Aesc, could you remind me – which circle of Hell is reserved for liars? Oh, never mind. Mycroft will know, won’t you?” he blasted, as his brother remained silent. “Because you’re lying again! Jesus Christ, Mycroft! Tell the truth about why you’re here!”

“Hey,” Lestrade cautioned as Sherlock grabbed at Mycroft and shook him. “You’ll be the one mending that jacket if you tear it. Let him go.” He helped Sherlock walk away a few paces, then assisted Mycroft to rise.

“My thanks,” murmured Mycroft, righting his clothes. He searched Sherlock’s implacable face. “Very well. And I wasn’t indulging in falsehood. It is because of the Musgrave Riddle.”

“Oh holy Heaven,” came from Sherlock after a minute’s furious staring at his brother, during which Lestrade could have sworn they spoke without words. “You always have to think – no; have other people think – that you’re the cleverest, the most intelligent, th – You’ve been studying it, haven’t you? And you think you’ve solved it. You –”

“No.” Just the one word, but it rang, echoing in the four corners of the room and silencing Sherlock. “I don’t think I’ve solved it. I _know_ I’ve solved it. Yes; I’ve been interested in it for years, and now I’ve got the answer before you.” His eyes gleamed.

“Nonsense!” Sherlock raised his voice to be heard over the others’ exclamations. “You don’t even know the words... Well, you weren’t even here! You...” He took a breath and stuck his shaking hands behind his back. Lestrade slotted his fingers into the tight clasp Sherlock had made. When he spoke, his tone was pointed. “I simply don’t believe you, brother dear. What are you about, claiming there are a few more letters lying undiscovered on the, the –”

“Succession house,” Lestrade threw in. He’d wanted a chance to use those words.

“Letters? What can you mean? I’m not talking about any form of correspondence. No. Something much more… _fraternal_ , one could say. Something of a different… _degree_. Something _grand_.” He smirked at their faces. “Ah. I fancy none of you is... _enlightened_. I’d supposed as such, else you’d have it. May I put it to the test? Lord Musgrave? May I?”

He held out his hand, and Aesc, brow furrowed, shook it.

“Quite.” Mycroft’s face gleamed with satisfaction. “Dr Watson, perhaps you’d…” He and John shook hands, and Mycroft’s beam shone a little brighter.

“My turn, I suppose?” Lestrade stuck his hand out, to look sharply at Mycroft when he shook it. What was that, with Mycroft’s thumb pressing hard on Lestrade’s second and third knuckles? He’d received handshakes like that before. From the chief magistrate, that first time, and –

“Ooh, can I have my go now? Please!” burst from Piers. He stretched out his hand and curled his fingers around Mycroft’s, pressing his hooked thumb on the knuckle of Mycroft’s forefinger. Lestrade was childishly pleased to see a look of surprise cross his lordship’s face.

“Big cuz!” Piers was entranced. “Fancy you a Master!”

“And you an Entered Apprentice.” Mycroft sounded sad.

“What the –” was as far as Lestrade got before there came, “ _Masons,_ ” from Sherlock and Aesc, followed by Mycroft’s, “Freemasons, more correctly.”

“It’s a secret fraternal organisation full of self-deluded,  mutually back-scratching men who indulge in arcane…Rituals,” Sherlock said, his voice slowing. He looked at Aesc.

“It’s a beautiful system of morality, veiled in allegory and illustrated by symbols,” Mycroft corrected. “And one into which the previous Lord Musgrave neglected to initiate his son.”

“He was one?”

“He was a _Knight_ Mason,” Mycroft answered an astounded Aesc, his tone reverent. “A Grand Master, in fact. And this house has historically been an extremely important Lodge, or Meeting House.”

“Knight?” John echoed. “And secret? Like the Riddle?”

“The _Ritual_ , yes. The verse, which should never have been written down, alludes to the secrets of the secular, chivalric brotherhood.” Mycroft pursed his lips and angled his head at Aesc, as if he were at fault.

“What’s that matter? Who cares?” carped Sherlock, and Lestrade was inclined to agree.

“A great deal, and a great many. What do you know of the origins of Freemasonary. Piers?”

“Oh, the Knights Templars! Or is it Templar Knights?” Piers frowned. “Anyway, their last Grand Master was dissolved by the pope. In olden times.”

“I think you mean the order was dissolved by the pope,” suggested Mycroft, after a pained pause.

“Clement V,” burst out Sherlock, who then proceeded to gabble out something about Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ, the rich and powerful Christian military order of medieval times.

“Indeed, whose last Grand Master, a wealthy crusader, was arrested on false charges of heresy and tortured into a false confession, mainly so his wealth could be seized.”

“And?” Sherlock made dismissive waves with his hand.

“And, having captured Jerusalem, the Master was in possession of certain...items. Artefacts from the First Temple, or Holy Temple, or Temple of Solomon.”

Lestrade felt a chill run through him. It cut like a knife.

Mycroft’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried and filled the room. “Stories and whispers have echoed down the ages, ever since the surviving Knights Templars escaped and took refuge in Scotland, whose king, Robert the Bruce, was excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church, and whence Freemasonry began. Stories of the temple being a repository of secret wisdom, of occult powers. Or that it housed something very precious indeed. The Ark of the Covenant, also known as the Ark of the Testimony, a chest containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. Or even” – Mycroft raised his voice over Sherlock’s heated exclamations – “that the Templars took possession of the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.”

 “And this whatever it is, has been passed down the generations, just like Freemasonry itself!” added Piers.

“And moved from Lodge to Lodge from time to time, to keep it safe.” Mycroft nodded.

“And it’s here?” Aesc asked, his voice rising.

“So my research would indicate.” Mycroft’s voice sounded well-fed now. Full and rich. He gazed at a set of miniatures making a display above a sideboard, then crossed to study them. His face was rapt. “Well, well. I see the love of dropping hints runs through the generations here, your lordship,” came his comment. “I wonder how many of your ancestors were also Knight Masons.” As much as Lestrade stared at the little paintings, he couldn’t see much beyond various men wearing fancy ceremonial clothes and holding things, seemingly posed outdoors around the estate. Well, he wasn’t initiated, or enlightened, was he.

“So where is it?” Piers asked. “The whatdjamacallit.”

“Oh, save your breath, cousin,” Sherlock broke in, his tone splintered. “He’ll never tell. He enjoys hoarding up information and secrets too much to give them away.”

“Makes you wonder if it’s all a bluff,” John added.

“Perhaps it shouldn’t be sought out or spoken. The Rhyme, and all that?” Aesc said. “Not saying you’re scared, Holmes, just, well…”

“Well. Yes, indeed. You had your suspicions?” Mycroft asked, then looked almost angry at Aesc’s puzzlement. He sighed, a heavy sound of concession. “The estate has a pair of wells, does it not.”

“Those old things?” Aesc blinked rapidly, then frowned. “We haven’t used them –”

“Ever. They’re not for drawing water. They’re known as Initiation Wells or Inverted Towers. Under stone.” Mycroft paused, to let them connect this with the verse. He swirled the brandy around in his glass while he waited. “One has winding stairs, containing nine platforms. Remember your Virgil now, brother mine?”

“Nine circles of Hell. Nine sections of Purgatory,” Sherlock muttered.

“And the nine skies of Paradise, perhaps.” Mycroft’s smile looked pleasant, but was hard at the edges, somehow. “The other well consists of a set of straight staircases, connecting the ring-shaped floors to one another. The spacing of the landings, as well as the number of steps in between, are dictated by Masonic principles. And all carry symbolic death and rebirth allegorical meaning, of course.”

“Oh, of course.” Lestrade didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm from his tone.

“A system of tunnels and caves connect the two wells and –”

“The whatdamacallit…” Piers wouldn’t let it go, earning himself a reproving glare. Mycroft slid a flat leather case free of his inside pocket.

“I had this copied from drawings that exist of the spiralling well.”

The drawing he showed them looked…unearthly. Steps and curves – like the stairways up to battlements in ancient castles, maybe. Turrets, banisters, recesses. He could see the stonework,  even feel the cold stone. Yet this didn’t lead up to the sky. It was a narrow downward-spiralling tunnel into the depths of the earth. Or even…Hell, Lestrade tried not to think.  

“Look.” Aesc pointed at the design at the bottom, as circular as the well. “An eight-pointed star?”

“It’s a Masonic compass over a Knights Templar cross,” came from Mycroft.

“Initiation into the light,” said Piers, tracing a finger from the bottom up, where light suffused the picture. He should know, Lestrade supposed, suddenly understanding Piers’s poor academic performance at university:  all those interests and crazes he got for things didn’t allow much studying time. Good thing he didn’t have to make his own living.

The atmosphere was as charged as if thunder had sounded and they were waiting for the lightning strike. “And you know where this well is?” Sherlock asked their host, who swallowed and nodded. “Then, come.” This was as decided as a thunder clap. “There’s no time to lose,” Sherlock declared, striding for the door. Lestrade was surprised  that Sherlock held it open for them all, waiting for them all to exit into the Marble Hall, Mycroft last.

“Oh, brother?” Sherlock asked when they’d taken a few steps, and Mycroft turned to him. Which was when Sherlock struck. Lestrade didn’t see, and there was no sound of a blow to hear, but the elder Holmes made a sound of half surprise, half pain and sank to the floor, crumpling under whatever Sherlock was doing to his neck. It looked as if he were pinching it.

“Baritsu!” John exclaimed, examining the body.

“You’ve done that to me before. Made me miss an exam, and you got better marks,” Aesc remarked.

“What…” Lestrade didn’t bother – it as obvious Sherlock was rolling his brother’s unconscious body into a cupboard concealed in the panelling.

“How’s that for Sardines, Fatty? Pity it’s not the Sweetmeat Closet.” Sherlock straightened. He caught Lestrade’s disapproving eye and waved a negligent hand. “Oh, he’ll be fine. He’s used to it. He was probably expecting it. We did it all the time when we were together at home.”

“I don’t even want to imagine the family dinners,” Lestrade declared, waiting while Sherlock set one of the street lads to guard the cupboard, before they all set off. Set off yet again into the dark and chill of a starlit night. Next time I get the chance of a holiday in the country, nice house and gardens, lake, river, woods, library, decent food, I’m…staying put in London, he decided. Might never leave it again. He was no longer interested in seeing the House and estate in the summer sunshine.

He was weary of it, of its cold night dark stuffed with things looming up out of the deceiving moonlight, full of night inhabitants with their yips and too-whits and glassy eyes glimpsed before fleeing and permeated with less…tangible things that scared and startled and led to madness and murder, things he was on his way to face, things from the dawn of Christianity, seemingly. He was glad of Sherlock’s hand and knew Sherlock felt the same, for all Sherlock was silent as the grave – oh – and frowning furiously.

 “It’s a fair way from the House?” he asked after a goodly while tramping through garden and park, nodding in resignation at the affirmative. Guessed as much. “I suppose it’d have to be, if the meetings were held there. More secret, like, for all the high-up guests arriving? Unless they were held somewhere else on the estate.”

Sherlock suddenly stopped. “Were they?” 

“No idea,” Aesc replied.

“Aesc.” They all stopped and turned to look at Sherlock as he spoke. “Your father never initiated you into the Craft. Why not?”

“As above,” Aesc started to quip, stopping at the look on Sherlock’s face. “What, Sherlock?”

“Well I’m just glad we’re not still cavorting over the place looking for more letters,” Lestrade said, trying to  get Sherlock’s attention, to knock that glazed look off his face. “What did they even spell, anyway.”

“No idea?” John joked with Aesc. “And you making your living with words.”

“Piers is the scholar, remember,” Lestrade added, still trying to raise a smile.

“Yes, but I couldn’t make them into a word. They were all Greek to me, I’m afraid,” the Oxford student confessed.

“ _Oh!_ ” Sherlock’s ringing yell made them jump.

“Love?” Lestrade asked, unmindful of the others. He didn’t like this. Sherlock –

“No! No; _not Greek_.” Sherlock grabbed Piers and shook him. When Sherlock spoke again, they could barely him whisper his last word: “ _Latin._ ”


	11. Chapter Eleven

“Latin!” he cried again, making Piers back away like a nervy horse. _“VE RU MC AR OL US RE…_ Of course! And not _one_ word. Not at all! It’s three! And we haven’t got them all. I’ve been so slow!” Lestrade grabbed the clenched fist Sherlock was hitting his own forehead with.

“Oh Cuz! You slow? Not so! Look how you got one over on old Mikers!” Piers observed, shivering a little in the breeze.

“Oh course I didn’t, you idiot! Which means – oh God! We have to get there before he does – come on!”

He still held Lestrade’s hand, and Lestrade snatched out behind him, blindly, not knowing whose sleeve he caught, but it didn’t matter, not in that frantic bone-jarring, blood-pumping, heart-stopping race through the moonlit park, then the garden, to slow with the Orangery in sight, but not their destination. No; that was the…Church. That unadorned stone building, its pinnacle reaching up to part the clouds, and its small yard of upright rectangular slabs and larger solid tombs – amongst which a shadow slipped, heading for the door and the Irregular folded up in the doorway, asleep on duty.

“With a wild yell of “Mycroft!” Sherlock hurled himself forward, to tackle his brother to the ground. The earthenware jar Mycroft was carrying fell and rolled, and the white cloth saturated with the jar’s sickly-sweet, spoilt fruit-reeking liquid fluttered free before Mycroft could use it to render the guard unconscious. Lestrade took advantage of Mycroft’s surprise and discomfort amidst the tumult to clap handcuffs on him.

“I see what you mean,” Lestrade told Sherlock. “I’d never really seen the family resemblance before. Remind me _never_ to come for Christmas dinner.”

“So it’s here?” Aesc burst out, indicating the Church.

“You don’t seriously expect me to say anything, surely,” Mycroft said, rolling his shoulders to relieve the pressure on his bound-behind-his-back hands.

“You don’t have to. In fact I wish you wouldn’t,” Sherlock replied, running a hand down the door. “ _Ever,_ ” came in a mutter.

“Allow me.” And Aesc was there, producing the large key. “I’ve been carrying this and the safe key since events transpired. I make a most unlikely chatelaine.”

It was quiet and still inside the moonlight-saturated place of worship. Their presence seemed to make no difference, not even when Sherlock pushed behind the metal screen separating the funerary chapel from the church proper.

“Brunton was found just outside it.” Aesc pointed. “Not inside.” Even a voice didn’t disturb the silence.

Sherlock shook his head. “But that’s not the spot. Look.”

They all, Lestrade included, turned in response to Sherlock’s chin jerk. The window? The stained glass? It wouldn’t be visible, in the gloom. They wouldn’t be able to see the scene depicted, some Biblical…

“The pattern one!” Lestrade exclaimed, recalling the circle and lines on the small window up on high, nothing to do with any Bible story he’d ever had drummed into him.

“It’s a sign!” Piers pointed a shaky finger at the thin beam of moonlight shooting through the window, more specifically forced through the middle of four lines engraved within a circle, like the points of a compass, maybe.

“It’s a sighting device,” corrected Captain Watson. “Like in a gun sight.”

“Indeed. And what’s its proper name, John?” Sherlock asked.

“A reticle,” John answered, his voice coming very slow.

“Yes. Not the Musgrave Riddle, or the Musgrave Ritual but the Musgrave _Reticle_.” Sherlock nodded. “And it tells us where to look. We have _VE RU MC AR OL US RE_. And the one letter we have yet to find…marks the spot. Look.”

The beam, focussed and forced through the cross lines, shone a bright –

“ _X!_ ” Lestrade was never sure who exclaimed, but whichever of them it had been spoke the truth. He swallowed through a dust-of-ages dry throat as he followed the thin silver _X_ ’s beam, over to where it landed. Next to Sherlock, in the family crypt.

“Which?” he asked, his question making sense to him as he recalled the stone effigies, the couple, the nun-looking woman, the…king-sized one.

“This.” The monarch, crown on head, sceptre in hand. Of course. “And I hope we’re not too late, hope that which Brunton and his wife found, they replaced until they knew what to do with it.”

“It’s been found?” Aesc sounded as shaky as Lestrade felt, and they all bent, peering through the wan light to see the stone scroll-shaped staff the kingly figure clutched had less dust or dirt on, and its ornate top was loose. It seemed an age before John got a candle alight and Aesc, hand unsteady, prised the contents free.

“Careful!” Sherlock cautioned. “Those papers are old. And extremely valuable. Worth a king’s ransom, you might say.” He set the candle down a few feet away and steered Aesc thence, to read in private. The silence was choking, the only noise the rustle of the old parchments.

“I don’t…” _Understand? Believe it?_ Aesc’s tone said both. Mycroft sighed, to receive sharp glares from all present. “You know!” It wasn’t clear whom Aesc accused, but Sherlock nodded, and Lestrade hurried to get between them as Aesc rushed back to them.

“I worked it out.”

“Wish I could,” came from a despondent Piers. “It’s a mystery.”

“Yes, you’re quite right.” They all looked surprised at Sherlock’s words. “There are too many mysteries. For instance, your Nordic roots, Aesc. Which Northern kingdom? Can anyone tell by looking at him?”

They stared. The uncertain candlelight caught the un-English, distant-shore grey of Aesc’s eyes and the red gold of his hair and beard. Habsburg grey, they called that shade, Lestrade recalled, and that little moustache and chin beard, wasn’t it a Dutch beard? He almost chortled. A lot of Dutch things, in this mystery, or case, whatever you wanted to call it. Oh yes, that Dutch painter had done lots of pictures of men with that facial hair. There were a couple in the big hall. Rich men, of course. Noblemen…

“An ancestor. Way back,” Aesc whispered, unable to bear their scrutiny any longer.

“But you don’t go way back,” Lestrade answered, his mind on the paintings in the Marble Hall. “Only to the seventeenth century.”

“Piers? A chance to shine,” Sherlock called, without taking his eyes from Aesc. “Who was the monarch then?”

“Oh, lots!” came immediately. “Wait – monarch. Oooh! The Merry Monarch, yes?”

“That was Charles II. Before him came –”

“Charles I!” Piers shouted. 

“Charles, yes. That name. That was he. My ancestor. In the painting.” Aesc gave a tight, quick nod. They’d tried to contact him earlier, in that ill-advised spirit session.

“And all the first born are called?” Sherlock’s catechism continued.

“Charles,” came in the smallest whisper.

“In Latin?” Sherlock wasn’t done.

“ _Carolus._ ”

“The letters?”

“ _VE RU MC AR OL US RE_ ,” said John, patting the stricken Aesc on his shoulder to give comfort.

“Spelling? Including the _X_?”

Aesc cleared his throat before answering his interrogator. “ _Verum Carolus Rex._ ”

“Meaning? I’ll supply it. _True King Charles._ ” The church seemed to stir, somehow. Sherlock took the parchments from Aesc’s nerveless fingers. “The genealogical trees are supplied? Excellent. So we may have the answer as to which Northern kingdom gave rise to your maternal lineage…” Lestrade held one end of the paper for Sherlock to trace the spidery lines. “Denmark. Margaret of Denmark. Her daughter, Maria Ana of Bavaria, her grand-daughter, Margaret of Austria and her great-grand-daughter, the mother of your ancestor, the first Lord Musgrave or Margrave, Maria Ana of Spain.” Sherlock straightened.  John helped Aesc to sit, his form lost to shadows.

“But that Maria Ana, she didn’t marry Charles I,” Lestrade objected. “They were supposed to. James I wanted it, sent his son Charles to Spain to court her, but what was it, he wouldn’t convert to Catholicism?”

“Couldn’t, for strategic reasons. And she wouldn’t marry a Protestant,” John said.

“Wouldn’t she?” Sherlock queried, holding the smaller paper. “Seems she did. And just in time.”

The shadows lightened, and the day began outside as they studied the attestations. Learnt of the secret union between Charles of England and the Spanish Infanta…and the birth of their son. _Charles._

“But this, this wedding, it was before Charles’s marriage to Henrietta Maria of France!”

“Which was thus bigamous.” Sherlock tapped the certificate.

 “And the birth of _this_ Charles was before the birth of their son…Charles II.” Lestrade wished he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t read the document, didn’t have the vision of an English king at the Spanish court, falling in love with the woman he couldn’t make his bride – publicly – and her falling for him.

“Who was thus illegitimate.” Sherlock shrugged.

Because Charles and Maria Ana had married – in secret, just as she’d given birth to their son in secret, a few scant months after their wedding and just before Charles had returned to his English kingdom, bringing his rightful son and heir with him, too afraid to tell his dynastic, politicking father. True King Charles…

“He set his first son up here, with a title and a retinue,” Aesc said, nodding slowly.

“Wait. That would mean…”

_All English history after that was wrong. All European history after that was wrong._ Lestrade hadn’t really learnt much of it, but had a vague notion Mara Ana of Spain had married her cousin Ferdinand, who’d been king of most of Europe and Holy Roman Emperor. It meant their children too were… It was too big to take in. It was too fantastic to take in. And yet the proofs that could destroy worlds were before them. The paper certificates and the living proof, openmouthed and shaking his head. _No._

“Oh sire!” came from somewhere near the floor.

“Piers, get up,” said Aesc.

“But your liegeness –”

“Get up and shut up,” Sherlock amended.

“He knew, didn’t he? That ancestor, that first Charles. He knew, sire!” Piers asked, neither getting up or shutting up.

“That his birth, if known, would be his father’s grave? _Margrave. My grave._ He left clues, like the rhyme,” Aesc answered, half turning away.

“And the mother and baby design everywhere! Another clue.” Lestrade pointed at one. It could be the Virgin and Child, or a tribute to Maria Ana of Spain and the royal baby. Whatever, the motifs were testament to feelings, to love.

“Maybe each generation left hints.” Aesc’s words revived Lestrade’s image of centuries of Musgraves nipping about the place, planting suggestions and teases.

“And each generation is kept in check, isn’t it.” Sherlock, as he often did, rounded on his brother. “The duke saw what we were doing and sent you a carrier pigeon. Who are you working for, crown agents, protecting the secret that could bring down the false monarchy, the first and fiercest secret of a sovereign, the secret watched over by the margrave knights in their tower pledged never to tell? And it does go up hill and down dale, over sea and under stone, doesn’t it?” Sherlock prodded further at his silent brother. “Because it’s the whole of the dominions at stake! What do you normally do, brother mine the agent, obfuscate, deter? How far would you protect it – to the death? Because we’ve had two, and an attempted murder.”

“The ancestor who raised an army, what happened to him?” John asked Aesc.

Lestrade expected the answer but it was a shock to hear, “He was killed in a skirmish. Oh, and Holmes, my father was never in the Masons, was he, by thunder!” Aesc concluded.

“As Lestrade might say, mine arse on a bandbox was he,” Sherlock added. Even his vulgarity got no reaction from the elder Holmes. But Lestrade suddenly chortled.

“Just thinking about La Adler and how mad she’ll be to have thrown you over, your highness! A duke’s pretty small potatoes: why, if she’d wed you, she’d be qu –”

“What will you do?” Mycroft’s unexpected speech, addressed to Aesc, cut Lestrade off.

“Do? _Do?_ Why, what I’ve always done. Manage the estate as best I can, marry, hopefully to better the estate, and pass the estate on. I know exactly who I am. I’m the son of my father, God rest his soul, and my mother, God bless her…endeavours. I’m Lord Rögnvaldr Musgrave, known as Aesc, and yes, currently as Langdale Pike, just for a bit of fun, and that’s quite enough for me.” He held their gazes for a moment before moving slowly to replace the furled papers and screw the stone top onto the effigy’s sceptre. “Interesting – maybe each generation faces this choice and –”

He looked startled at the clapping which swelled and filled the church as one by one they all joined in, the sound amplifying as if the likenesses of his ancestors added their applause, their approval of his decision. The ringing echoes didn’t break the thick, ancient peace. They were absorbed into it, into the fabric of time, of history.

“Lord Musgrave.” Mycroft shook his hands free of the cuffs – another! That family! – and approached, arm outstretched, to shake Aesc’s hand. Aesc allowed it, of course, shaking heartily, even clapping Mycroft on the shoulder. Sherlock scoffed.

“All your machinations, cunning, strategising and scheming, defeated by one man’s decency,” came his judgement. “You –”

But they were never to know what he’d been about to say. His words were lost in the hubbub from outside. Running footsteps, pursuit, cries, and a loud yell from the boy on guard of, “Trying to get me again! That’s twice on one watch!”

“And who watches the watchman, eh?” came in Billy’s voice, and they all rushed to the door to see Billy righting the shaken Jacky and a couple more Irregulars giving chase to a distant figure. “Especially when they come at ’im with a stick!” Billy added, showing the stout wooden cane seized from the villain they’d prevented from attacking their fellow street lad, them on the watch of him with all the gentry rushing about like scalded cats and –

“I’ve seen that cudgel before,” Lestrade announced, his tone as grim as death. He rubbed his healing head. “Who the hell tried to gain entrance here?”

“Mycroft!” Sherlock cried, making for his brother.

“I swear on all that’s holy this is none of my doing. Sherlock, please!” The last was precautionary, Lestrade felt, when Mycroft saw the look in his brother’s eye and the way his fist raised.

“Let’s sort things, first,” he advised, stilling his lambling. “I want that bastard who lamped me as much as anyone does. Who was it? Who are they chasing?”

“Some half-legs from the stables!” came the astonishing reply. “Some half-fed butcher’s cur,” Jacky added, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “We just pegged him for a lazy idler, way he came and went. Bit like –” His gaze swung to Piers, then his face creased in confusion.

“See! Told you my disguise was the tops!” Piers crowed.

“So this man was a local, taken on to help out with the guests’ extra work?” Lestrade continued, notebook out, pencil ready.

“Don’t think so.” Billy shook his head. “He didn’t speak the same as the others. Spoke foreign, like.”

“Oh Cuz, a Bona –”

“No!” Sherlock cut Piers off from his French fancies. “Billy, did he speak anything like this?” His last words were delivered in a singsong…brogue.

“Yes!” Billy exclaimed.

“Oh I say! It must have been that little Irish fellow that didn’t know anything about horses!” Piers exclaimed. “I saw him leading a prad from the right, can you imagine!”

They didn’t have to. They’d seen him, small of stature, flat cap pulled down low concealing his face.

“And I thought, at the time, and this is funny, that especially with him being left-handed, he reminded me of that other Emerald Islander, the one we met before, that trickster, that nasty evil man who was…trying… Oh. Oh.” Piers swallowed and cast his gaze down. Lestrade’s quelling gaze stopped Sherlock from so much as raising a hand to his luckless cousin. His sweet was getting trained. Soon be civilised.

“Piers,” Sherlock said, his tone mild, “in future, when you notice anything suspicious, could you please tell me immediately?”

“Right away!” Piers promised, nodding fervently. “You mean like seeing His Grace the Duke of Wellington tiptoeing from Lady Musgrave’s chambers at dawn yesterday?”

In the uproar that followed this, of which Aesc’s, “ _WHAT?_ ” was bellowed the loudest, Mycroft’s assuring the group that he would track down the murderer could just about be heard.

“Good luck with that,” sneered Sherlock at Mycroft’s departing back. Lestrade led him inside, away from the noise, and the others, minus the Irregulars, trailed after them, They slowed and looked around, at a loss in the aftermath. There was none of the wild whooping usually seen after a case was closed, perhaps as here the miscreant was still at large, albeit thwarted.

“Well,” John said, clapping his hands together. “I should…”

“Me too. Work and all that,” Piers agreed. “Oh. Yes. Not really a coachman. Disguise for case that’s now solved. Right.”

“Greg?” Sherlock asked, stretching out a hand to him.

“Umm? Oh, I’m happy to stay here a while,” he said, taking a breather, looking anew at the stained glass and monumental stone surrounding them. The place of worship had a stern, removed beauty, untouched by time, unmoved by their presence. “When was the last ceremony in here?” The question came as if unbidden from him.

“Ahh.” Aesc stared hard at him, making him aware of his stance there before the…altar, Sherlock at his side, them entwined. The bells struck. Eight o’clock. “You’re asking about a wedding.”

“I…”

“Want to be married.”

“Well, ’course.” Lestrade had to fight to speak through a thick throat. He tightened his arm around his love and reached across for his hand to squeeze. “If it wasn’t impossible, to say the least.”

“If it wasn’t? And you’re talking about taking Sherlock to husband, I presume. In sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?” Aesc walked to them and suddenly hopped up the small step behind the wooden altar.

“Of course!” Lestrade scowled at Aesc’s twinkling eyes. “Yes. I do.”

“And Sherlock, you’d have Lestrade as a husband, to have and to hold, until death do ye part, yes?”

“Yes.” Just that one word, but so full, so rich, so rare… And made even more perfect when Sherlock leaned close, then closer still, to whisper in Lestrade’s ear, “I do.”

“And no one assembled here objects?” Aesc continued. John and Piers shook dumbfounded heads. “Then by the power invested in me, in the presence of God and before this congregation, these people having given their consent and declared their marriage by the joining of hands, I therefore proclaim them man and husband together.” Aesc came and grasped their clasped right hands. “And what God has joined together, suffer no man to put asunder.” He closed the huge Bible on the reading stand with a loud bang. It reverberated in a way their voices hadn’t, the echoes rolling and gathering. _Waiting._

“You may kiss the groom,” Aesc prompted.

“That’s a filthy rotten game, your lordship.” Lestrade could hardly speak.

“Why, it’s no jest, man!”

“ _You’re_ _ordained_?” Sherlock questioned.

“Sherlock! We both are, remember? Oh, that’s right – you failed the Thirty-Nine Articles. Sherlock!” Aesc continued, as everyone seemed frozen. Lestrade wondered if he’d ever move again from the image of Sherlock japanned in the long black gown and beruffed in frills of white... “You must recall the wager we made! After gaining our degrees, we presented ourselves with our Oxon certificates to the Bishop of Oxford for ordination. And while you were found to have the required competency in Latin, you had no knowledge of scripture or familiarity with the liturgy and church doctrine as written in the Thirty –”

“If I recall” – Sherlock’s face said he didn’t wish to – “The bishop gave you only a cursory examination. Consisting of inviting you to take a glass of sherry with him, I believe? Him being your uncle?”

“Wait.” Was this how Piers felt, one step behind? Lestrade wondered. “ _Married?_ We’re _married_? Official, like?”

“Oh yes, I have to note it in the Parish Register...” Aesc wrested a huge book free of a reluctant drawer and spat in the inkwell to thin its contents. “You can pay the threepenny stamp duty at your leisure.”

“Married.” Yes, he’d turned into Piers. Poor Piers. Poor Lestrade.

“This is my parish. I haven’t got around to appointing a curate yet. Or getting parishioners. Churchgoers seem to prefer attending at the chapel in Musgrave House. They get a gawk at the furnishings, and a decent lunch.” Aesc shrugged.

“Oh, Cuzes! Let joy be unconfined!” cried Piers, embracing them heartily.

‘“To have joy, one must share it.”’ Lestrade was proud he could speak at all, but had no idea where that quote had come from. He felt his face crease into the hugest grin as Sherlock used a thumb to wipe a tear, a tear Lestrade hadn’t felt fall, from his cheek. He was almost blinded by the blaze of happiness in Sherlock’s eyes, glowing more green than blue or silver, in the way they shone only when Sherlock was really, truly, delightedly happy. As exultant as Lestrade.

“And seeing as we’re once again reciting our personal poet,” Sherlock murmured, “let me cap your quote and say ‘I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all.”’

And no matter how fervently Lestrade wanted to tell his cheeky little…husband how much he’d be paying for that, soon as Lestrade got him home to their bedroom, all he could say, his voice as ringing with as much elation as his husband’s, was, “Blessed Byron!”


End file.
